Lord Greaves: My Lords, is it not the case that flying flags is excellent, provided that there are lots of flags indicating the diversity of today's world and the number of different communities in which we live? Does the Minister agree that others should follow the example of Colne in Lancashire—and also Chester, which was referred to the by noble Lord, Lord Harrison—which flies the Lancashire flag, the English flag, the Union flag and the European flag? When we did this, we were told that the European flag would be desecrated. The only flag that ever gets desecrated is the Union flag by football hooligans on a Saturday night.

Baroness Scotland of Asthal: My Lords, I certainly agree with my noble friend that an extreme threat must be present. I cannot comment on either the case involving the man with the chair leg or that of the Brazilian man. Noble Lords will know that those issues are currently under investigation. Such decisions are a matter of operational tactics, which are a matter for the police. We do not think it appropriate to change that.

Viscount Bridgeman: My Lords, will the Minister tell the House what assessment has been made of the merits of non-lethal force, such as Taser guns, in dealing with cases such as suicide bombers?

Lord Bhattacharyya: rose to call attention to the contribution of science and technology to the United Kingdom economy; and to move for Papers.
	My Lords, this debate on the importance of science, engineering and technology could not be more timely. A day does not pass without science being drawn into some controversy in the press, from climate change to stem cells, avian flu to ID cards, animal testing to nuclear power. While these subjects are certainly controversial, the science very rarely is. For many years, our governments have benefited from excellent scientific advice from a stream of very good scientific advisers. It is good to see that one of them, the noble Lord, Lord May of Oxford, is here today.
	Our future has never been so closely linked to the quality of our science, engineering and technology. This is not a new debate. My party has been committed to science, engineering and technology from its inception. Well before Harold Wilson's "white heat of technology", we were committed to science. Science has played and continues to play a huge part in liberating the people of Britain from Beveridge's Five Giants—want, disease, ignorance, squalor and idleness. Speaking of giants, one of the giants of the 1945 Labour Government said that in Britain, original discoveries are made which are not followed up in the practical field. He went on to recommend that:
	"A closer relationship should be established between the potential users of the results of research and research itself. The practical and the theoretical are two aspects of the same activity. Their separation is a hangover from the days of cloistered learning".
	That was Nye Bevan from In Place of Fear. Sadly, in 1951 he was out of office and did not live to see a Labour government committed to those ideals.
	A great deal has happened since that split in public policy between the practical and the theoretical was identified. I do not think that it was resolved until quite recently. Science will always be the most romantic and exciting part of the science, engineering and technology spectrum. The pursuit of Nobel prizes, the hope of discovering completely new things and exploring new worlds means that science has a natural kudos. Britain can be proud of its performance in science. In most areas, UK science is truly world class. In the Royal Society we have the world's pre-eminent scientific society. We are honoured to have so many eminent scientists as Members of this House, including both the present and future Presidents of the Royal Society.
	Britain is second only to the US in the volume and influence of its scientific publications, bearing in mind that we are a quarter of the size of the US, and in the winning of international science prizes. By any measure, our record in science is outstanding. However, we have to remember that it is usually engineering and technology that create the wealth. Thankfully, science, engineering and technology policy transcends party politics. It was a Conservative Government who gave us our current strategy. The White Paper, Realising our Potential, was launched in 1993 by William Waldegrave—now, the noble Lord, Lord Waldegrave. With echoes of Bevan, its purpose was:
	"To harness the strength of science and engineering to the creation of wealth in the UK by bringing it into closer, more systematic, contact with those responsible for industrial and commercial decisions".
	When we launched our science policy in 2000, we did not change the general thrust of the 1993 policy. However, there is a key difference between then and now—and that is that this Government have been prepared to put some cash behind the policy so that it can be implemented. We are in a golden age of research. A great deal of the credit for that must go to my noble friend Lord Sainsbury, who has been the champion of science in government, with passion and skill, since 1998. I wonder whether he realises how greatly he is admired in the world of science.
	Government spending on R&D was falling at the beginning of the 1990s. We have seen an increase in spending of £2.5 billion a year between 1998–99 and 2002–03. Thanks to a dedicated stream of capital funding worth some £500 million a year by 2004–05, and substantial new resources for the research councils, today most university laboratories no longer look like museums. Although the increase in student fees has been controversial, I support it. The amount of money that will be available to universities—if they spend it wisely on resources—is much welcome.
	While this is a substantial increase in funding, the challenge of being world class is very demanding and the resource cannot be spread too thinly. Clearly new money is very welcome but, as budgets get tighter, it is important for future Chancellors to realise that we are in a long-term business. The current Chancellor appreciates the importance of science and technology in generating economic growth. He has taken steps to reduce the cost of business R&D, through the tax system and increased public spending on R&D. Our private sector R&D has not improved at all in a decade. To some extent, our quality of public sector funding has hidden the general weakness in our private sector.
	I recently went to look at the fruits of some of this new spending at Diamond, a major new facility jointly funded by the Government and the Wellcome Trust, near Oxford. At a capital cost of £380 million, it is the largest research facility to be built in the UK for more than 30 years, a clear demonstration of the Government's commitment to our science base. Diamond produces X-rays many billions of times more brilliant than those from a hospital X-ray machine. This Diamond is seriously bright. These X-rays enable us to probe the internal structure of matter in considerable detail. This capability is of immense value to academic research and also to industry; for example, a 3D image of a virus is the key to discovering new pharmaceuticals to combat it.
	As an engineer, I like to see good engineering: 35,000 cubic metres of concrete and 2,000 tonnes of steel and the key engineering components are built to a precision less than the thickness of a human hair—that is serious engineering.
	People do not realise that Diamond is pushing the boundaries of advanced engineering, and yet it is on time and within budget. Civil engineering on this scale and with this degree of technical achievement is something to be marvelled at. The public expect the things that engineers do to work. The press loves stories about bridges that wobble and buildings that run massively over budget, but Diamond is just where it should be.
	The UK has developed a very strong position in the exciting new fields of molecular biology and genetics, where Diamond will make a major impact. The Sanger Institute played a remarkable role in the human genome project which is now leading to significant new technologies. The UK's enlightened position on regulatory controls and ethical issues has also been very important. It provides public reassurance while not restricting the creativity of the scientist. The scientists in this case deserve praise for taking the public with them in this area of research.
	It is not an easy balancing act when we are exploring such potentially controversial fields as gene replacement therapies. Too often, there is a breakdown between scientists and the public. New knowledge can be over-hyped, and the public lose confidence in the scientific community. As home to several pharmaceutical companies, the UK is well placed to build on the new genetic revolution and to turn it into profitable new products. Pharmaceuticals are one area where knowledge transfer from science to products is less fuzzy than in engineering. There is a linear process from the laboratory to the market. We can see a direct return from our investments in the science base; this has been one of the UK's success stories.
	In contrast, in my speciality of the design and development of automotive products, the process is very complex. A modern car consists of 25,000 different elements, each one pushing the limits of our knowledge—from lubricants to lightweight materials, from electronics to sophisticated computational fluid dynamics. No wonder improvements are incremental; it requires a broad range of skills, calling on many academic disciplines. Even if these skills are present, without the right cost base and the aesthetic "wow" factor, you will still not be able to competitive. In my sector, we have not been very successful in bringing these technology skills together in this country. This has been a major weakness, and still needs to be tackled.
	I have been thinking about the improvement in the English cricket team and wondering whether it is due to global warming. While I welcome the improvements in our batting and bowling and the longer, drier summers so important to cricket, I fear the other consequences of global warming—the rising sea levels and the extra volatility in our weather patterns. That will certainly pose research challenges and how we adapt to these new conditions, as well as making life more difficult for weather forecasters. Scientists such as those in the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research are exposing the extent and reality of global warming. If we are to reduce carbon emissions, there will be an important role for science, engineering and technology in meeting the challenge. We have to address our future sustainable energy requirements and the Government have to face major decisions on energy policy.
	The research community is already rising to the energy challenge. Only this week, the research councils and the DTI launched a major energy research programme. New ideas for energy supply are only part of the equation. Intelligent regulations can be a great spur to R&D. It is unlikely that car makers would have introduced catalytic converters to clean up car exhausts without emission controls. Nor would we have more fuel-efficient engines. Many advances have been made because manufacturers have had to meet new standards. We should not allow the idea that all red tape and regulation is a bad thing. Often regulation comes about because of advances in science. Those who speak for industry in these matters sometimes sound like Victorian mill owners. Do firms really want to kill people with asbestos or have a return to the London smog? There is no getting away from the fact that research is global.
	Earlier this year I had the tremendous honour to return to my alma mater, the Indian Institute of Technology at Kharagpur, to receive one of the golden jubilee alumnus awards. What a transformation. When I graduated all those years ago, 80 per cent of my cohort left the country, the vast majority going to the US. The US is not complaining. Huge chunks of today's high-tech industrial sector are dominated by Indians. However, the new India is experiencing an influx of returnees. Back in India, the situation today could not be more different. The IIT Kharagpur is ranked third in the world for technology universities. Catalysed by massive funding from global businesses, their facilities would be the envy of any British university. When the likes of GE, Intel and IBM decide to invest significant sums in R&D in India, you know that something is happening.
	On my regular business trips to Asia, I have seen the developments in India, China, Taiwan, South Korea and Singapore—new centres of world-class research. Some may be small, but they are growing fast. The ending of the Cold War has seen a huge acceleration of international technology transfer. The licensing of products and acquisition of technology are the stepping stones to economic development. With political, economic and fiscal stability, rapid growth follows.
	For successful technology transfer and economic growth, skill is imperative—hence the huge amount of spending on education by these countries. China alone graduates in excess of 600,000 scientists and engineers every year. Many in the West have only ever seen Asia as a low-cost centre—that has never been the ambition of Asians. Who would have thought that the Asian countries would rise so rapidly among the leaders in stem cell research? In the 1980s, I visited the Chinese space research design and manufacturing labs. Even then, the level of technology was astounding. Many of these countries have been able to leap-frog the processes of technical development which we had to pass through. I have a couple of examples of that from my own experience. Tata Industries in India decided that it wanted to develop an indigenous motor car. It is a huge firm and excellent in all that it does. The Indica was developed from an idea to a saleable product in just two years and has been a success in a highly competitive automotive market—thanks to the ambition of a single man, Ratam Tata, who was then the chairman.
	The lesson for Britain and the reason why these countries are moving so fast is that they have an enormously important skill base. That is why we need more technologically literate managers with a skillbase in science, engineering and technology, not just in financial engineering. Our best universities are quite capable of producing people with the required skills to make this happen. After all, one of the outputs of research is well-trained manpower. Our industries need to recognise and utilise this.
	When I first went to look at Shanghai, it was a lovely place to visit as a tourist, but economically there was hardly anything there. Today, my group has a research and education centre at Suzhou and it is one of the worlds's hottest technology regions. You can hardly move there without bumping into an R&D lab or a high technology manufacturing plant. It is almost as if someone has picked up the Cambridge Science Park, along with large chunks of Silicon Valley and slapped them down in China.
	Mention of the Cambridge Science Park brings me back to another important aspect of research in the UK, and an area where we have seen significant changes in recent years. Many are now keen to set up their own businesses. Some have had notable success. If there is a difficulty in the innovation chain in the UK it is in convincing sceptical businesses to run with new ideas. That is where we need to spend some money.
	We in this country have done extremely well. The modern mobile phone, which we use every day, comes entirely out of Britain. The liquid crystal display comes from the Royal Signals and Radar Research Establishment. The detector technology comes from astronomy and has re-emerged in the cameras in our phones which were originally from University College London. The design and manufacture of the nipple antennas which replaced the eye-threatening extendable aerials comes from Sarantel in Northampton and the electronic design software behind the huge amount of intelligence now embedded in a cell phone comes from ARM in Cambridge. The phones themselves may be manufactured largely in the Far East, but the largest mobile phone company is in this country—Vodaphone.
	So I want to end by saying a couple of things. We are a hub of research and technology acquisition and transfer, yet we reside in the extreme end of the science, engineering and technology spectrum. Oxford, Cambridge, Imperial College and University College London, to name a few, are great universities; they are right at the top end of the world leagues of university rankings in research. They are tremendous centres of excellence and economic drivers. British science is world class. My noble friend Lord May, when he was the Chief Scientific Adviser, commissioned the report that talked about value for money in science spending—and the UK came out on top. If the rest of the economy was as productive, we would not have a productivity problem. I beg to move for Papers.

Lord Soulsby of Swaffham Prior: My Lords, the House should be very grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Bhattacharyya, for bringing this topic for debate. It goes without saying that a healthy science and technology is vital for the advancement of the economy of any country. This debate asks the question whether Britain is well placed to accomplish that in the modern day—and I regret to say that I am not as sanguine about the answer as the noble Lord is.
	I shall address three questions in this debate. First, does the proportion of the national income spend on research and development compare with that of other competitor countries? Secondly, do we adequately recognise our research and development personnel compared with other countries, especially those in universities? Thirdly, and slightly away from the major question, how does United Kingdom research and development impact on the global village?
	First, with some countries, such as China and India, it is not easy to get a figure for how large a proportion of national income is spent on research and development. In addition, the cheap labour situation in some countries makes it difficult to compare. But it is vital to our own economy that research and development matches that of some of those countries. Some five years ago, I had the privilege of leading a Department of Trade and Industry mission to China to assess biotechnology development in that country. Our conclusion at that time was that there was much "me too" development going on, but we recognised that very shortly China would be equivalent to, if not in the lead, of some western countries, including our own. And so it has been—and we all know how many electronic devices, items of clothing, cosmetics, medicines, vaccines and so on bear the label "Made in China". That has resulted from a massive commitment on the part of the Chinese to research and development.
	What should be the target of research and development spend as part of the economic advancement looked for by the Chancellor? The noble Lord, Lord Sainsbury, gave a target of 2.5 per cent of the national income to be reached in 2014—but are we placing ourselves in jeopardy by waiting that long? We should take care that we do not place ourselves in such jeopardy. Figures given nationally find that the United Kingdom lags behind the European Union average, and our own 1.86 per cent spend of national income has remained static for the past decade. Similarly, business spending has remained at 1.25 per cent.
	The Department of Trade and Industry's research and development scorecard, a detailed international analysis of corporate spending, indicates that Britain is in fact falling behind. We are at present strong in research and development in the pharmaceutical field, but can we feel confident that this will continue? How many small and medium companies have moved elsewhere from the United Kingdom because of, for example, harassment by animal activists, as has been mentioned? New legislation will curb much of this, and—many people think—the sooner the better, but it takes determination and courage to stand up to such activities, as has been demonstrated by Huntingdon Life Sciences personnel.
	Medical and pharmaceutical research, however, is mobile, as are those who conduct it. They are capable of moving to other countries, and, with the problems associated with the Cambridge primate lab and the animal lab in Oxford, I know full well that the scouts from American laboratories and institutions are out for the best brains who may think it useful to move to other parts of the world.
	Doubtless your Lordships will have received papers from the Association of University teachers and university academic staff in their campaign for higher salaries for some 65,000 academics and research workers. I have complete sympathy with them for their case. For far too long academic salaries have been unbelievably low for individuals who have achieved so much, got higher degrees, undertaken important research, received prizes, and done a lot of teaching and administration.
	This lack of adequate rewards has made it a challenge to fill vacancies in departments of all kinds. A glance at some of the scientific journals shows that the list of research student opportunities is large, but also that the number of places to be filled by graduates, postgraduates and post-doctorals is also large. If we look over the membership of many departments in this country, we see a relatively high proportion of non-British names. It is no bad thing to have strong representation from overseas, but I would like to see that adequately balanced by personnel from the UK.
	This aspect brings me to my final comment on how British science and technology is related to the global village we live in. A strong base in science and technology reflects on the contribution a country can make in the developing world. The strength of research attracts major funding, as instanced by the Gates Foundation placing major funding for malaria research in this country and the Wellcome Trust supporting tropical disease work.
	So much of this effort, though welcome, is for high-profile diseases such as HIV/AIDS, malaria, tuberculosis and malnutrition. There are, however, a number of diseases that have been labelled "neglected tropical diseases"—protozoan parasites, worms and so on. These are as important as many of the high-profile diseases, and research and development is needed for them as well. Many of the people who might come to this country for further training, as PhDs or post-doctorals, could contribute enormously and bring with them the concept of helping in these countries. Certain pharmaceutical companies have freely donated medicines to control some of these neglected diseases for as long as needed.
	Finally, the public/private partnerships now increasingly evident in the third world, and aided by the Commission for Africa established by the Prime Minister and the Chancellor of the Exchequer as a Marshall Plan for Africa, exemplify our commitment to the global village and will transfer our excellence in research and development to that global village, as was mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Bhattacharyya.

Baroness Morgan of Drefelin: My Lords, the pressure is on for me to make my comments within the allotted time, so I shall be quick.
	I begin by welcoming the support that the Government have given to science and particularly to medical research. I am very pleased to see it. As the Prime Minister stated:
	"The science base is the absolute bedrock of our economic performance".
	The Government are putting their money where their mouth is, as exemplified by their £10 billion spending commitment for UK science announced in the 2004 spending review. In particular, according to an announcement made by the Department of Trade and Industry's in March, the Government will invest via the Medical Research Council more than £440 million over the next three years for clinical research into diseases such as cancer, stroke and diabetes. I very much welcome that. I was also very pleased to see a manifesto commitment to make the UK the,
	"best and most attractive location for science and innovation in the world through the largest sustained increase in science spending in a generation".
	So I welcome this debate. I declare an interest not only as a past chief executive officer of a medical research charity but also as a very lapsed scientist. Today, I want to make two points.
	First, I believe that one of the best ways of achieving our manifesto commitment is to build on the research capacity of the NHS, which is literally our UK science USP. I want to talk briefly about a special example which is very dear to my heart and which shows how well that can work. Many noble Lords will have been aware of breast cancer awareness month, which has come to an end. My former charity, Breakthrough Breast Cancer, may be known for its pink products, celebrity fashion icons, T-shirts and fluffy teddies, but all the fuss is about raising hard cash to establish and support a truly outstanding research centre that brings together scientists and clinicians in a co-ordinated research effort aimed at understanding the causes of breast cancer, identifying new targets for treatment and promoting new innovation, with the ultimate aim of achieving the charity's vision of a future free from fear of breast cancer.
	The Breakthrough Breast Cancer Research Centre opened in 1999. It is housed in the Institute of Cancer Research and the Royal Marsden Hospital and also has very close links with Guy's Hospital and St Thomas's Hospital. More than 100 scientists and clinicians now work there under the leadership of Professor Alan Ashworth and his deputy, Professor Clare Isacke.
	This debate should be about results, and so I should like to spend a couple of moments highlighting some of the outputs of the breakthrough centre. As it opened only five years ago, I think that it is quite remarkable. For example, Professor Ashworth recently announced the identification of a potential new drug that could dramatically improve the treatment of patients with certain types of hereditary breast cancer. Women carrying faults in their BRCA1 and BRCA2 genes, which are associated with breast cancer, have up to an 85 per cent chance of developing breast cancer if they live to the age of 70.
	In April 2005, Professor Ashworth reported that a new drug—a poly (ADP-ribose) polymerase inhibitor, known as a PARP inhibitor, for obvious reasons—may be very effective in killing tumour cells in people who have faults in their BRCA1 and BRCA2 genes. This drug is likely to be much less toxic for healthy cells than standard chemotherapy. The PARP inhibitors are expected to enter into clinical trial to monitor the safety of the drug and determine the most effective dosage for future clinical trials. It is remarkable that such a new drug is coming to trial after such a short period. That has been made possible by the close collaboration of scientists and practising clinician scientists, who, I assure noble Lords, are a very rare breed.
	This new therapeutic approach centres on exploiting a specific deficiency in breast cancer cells—their Achilles heel. It is exactly the kind of targeted breakthrough that we need to see to tackle this most common cancer in women in the UK. It is also exactly what we want to see adding value to our knowledge-based economy: UK research undertaken with charity funding at an institution supported by the Government, developing novel approaches tried and tested in the NHS, with potential spin-offs worldwide and ultimately, we hope, saving lives.
	However, if we are to make the most of advances such as these, it is essential that we speed up the time taken from bench to bedside, as we have seen in the case of Herceptin. We need timely, streamlined processes getting the benefits of modern research to patients as quickly as possible. It is good for patients and makes good business sense too.
	To emphasise further my point about the NHS, I want to talk about the Breakthrough Generations Study. This was launched a year ago and I believe that it exemplifies why the NHS is very much our USP. Of course, medical research is not just about developing treatments; with a disease such as breast cancer, it is essential that we also concentrate on understanding the causes of the disease. It is now just over a year since the study was launched. It will be the UK's largest comprehensive study into the causes of breast cancer, recruiting up to 100,000 women from the age of 18. It will run for the next 40 years, and possibly longer, although the first results are expected very much sooner than that.
	We have all recently talked about the importance of Richard Doll's work on the causes of lung cancer. The Breakthrough Generations Study aims to do the same for breast cancer. However, we already know that breast cancer is a multifactorial disease and therefore the challenge is much more complex. I am delighted that the study has already recruited up to 30,000 women—10,000 on the first day, amazingly—and 700 participants are joining every week.
	I believe that this study, which will be the largest in the world to look comprehensively at the causes of breast cancer, exemplifies why NHS cancer registries continue to be so important. Elsewhere in the world it is not possible to follow such large numbers of patients for such long periods and to follow up with new bloods every five years. As we know, there are real challenges for clinical research, and I believe that studies like this exemplify why the UK is such an outstanding location for science.
	Secondly, very briefly, if we are to make the most of all our talents in this country we need to continue to do much more to increase the representation of women in science, engineering and technology. I do not want to rehearse all the old arguments—I am sure that noble Lords know them very well—but I would like to highlight one killer statistic which, for me, sums up the problem. In science, engineering and technology occupations, men's hourly earnings are higher than those of women in the same occupations and men's hourly earnings increase with age whereas women's hourly earnings remain the same. There are many outstanding women out there, not least Breakthrough's very own Professor Clare Isacke, but it can be tough for them, especially if they want to have a family. I would be grateful if the Minister could update us on the measures being taken to ensure that we maximise on all the available talent, with the obvious benefits to our economy that that will entail.
	Nearly 50 years ago my mother had to give up training as a promising clinical scientist when she fell pregnant. One would hope that things have got better. Now, as her grand-daughter—my daughter—grinds away at her science specialist school showing all the signs of becoming a promising scientist herself, should I be optimistic about her prospects of a rewarding career both financially and intellectually, or should I encourage her to do media studies instead?

Lord Hunt of Chesterton: My Lords, I, too, congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Bhattacharyya, on initiating the debate. He has a most distinguished career. At the University of Warwick, he helped to show the way in relating science and technology in universities to the needs of industry. When I was the first research student at Warwick in 1964, we had to conduct our experiments in the Bristol Siddeley factory next to Coventry police station, where, incidentally, I learnt about the procedures for identity parades as part of my PhD programme.
	The Government were elected in 1997 following a period of diminished government funding of science which started not just in 1979 but in the late 1970s. This stimulated scientists to look for alternative sources of funds from UK industry and from overseas. So when after 1997 this Government expanded S&T funding, many British universities and institutions were in a good position, with their strong linkages, to make use of it. That view is held by many of our continental colleagues, who say that they never went through the "cold shower" period which the Brits had to endure.
	The other important feature of the funding post-1997 is that UK research has considerably improved in quality and quantity. As your Lordships might expect, I want to give two topical examples. The Hadley Centre is regarded as the world's number one for climate prediction. It is the standard by which US laboratories measure their own performance, as I have witnessed on committees in the United States. Last week, a Royal Society conference was told how the Met Office made a three-day forecast of Hurricane Katrina's arrival on the southern American coast. The error was only 60 kilometres for three day's ahead. It was the most accurate in the world.
	I want to make a few points about science and technology in industry. I declare an interest as a professor at University College and a director of a small company in Cambridge. First, UK tax policy has helped small companies through encouraging reinvestment in R&D and—to pick up a point made by my noble friend—by helping women to work in those companies through more generous maternity arrangements; I assure your Lordships that in my company they receive equal pay. This week, the Times Higher Educational Supplement contains a strong article about the remarkable achievements of some small spin-off companies, notably in Oxford and Cambridge. Some of those achievements are not only scientific but financial. I fear that I have never experienced that aspect of the process.
	However, the successful development of those companies and the application of research requires more funds for knowledge transfer, as my noble friend Lord Haskel commented. In my experience, and as people providing evidence to House of Lords committees have commented, it is often much easier to get half a million pounds for some fundamental science than to find even £50,000 to develop an application, which the peer review system almost always rejects. It is true that it is easier to find money for application when there is a clear cash return, but if the object is to apply science to produce a product—for example, software or some device—that will be for the public good but where the direct cash return is uncertain, that is extremely difficult and, in my experience, you always have to go abroad. As Mr Alan Jones commented in his evidence to the committee, Woking is now a world leader in applying energy-saving technology, thanks to support from Denmark.
	My second point is that—again, as other noble Lords have commented—probably the biggest failure of the UK is the low level of investment in R&D by companies. The president of the Institution of Civil Engineers noted this week in his presidential address that the construction industry spends more on litigation than on R&D. Why? Because of health and safety issues and of mistakes. I shall tell your Lordships a little story. I was asked to advise a construction company about its science and technology policy, so I said, "Let us have an afternoon in which we learn about all the mistakes that take place". We saw slide after slide of the most catastrophic errors. I was never asked to return as a consultant to that company, but I believe that the people in that company learned a good deal from that experience. There is greater scope for using new materials and technology in that industry to improve productivity.
	Other noble Lords have talked about patents. My experience as an academic was that when a laboratory was asked to give advice to a major metallurgical company, the laboratory was paid £1,500 for its technical advice. We were then told that the company spent £50,000 on patenting that couple of days' work. So what is the incentive? It is extremely difficult and costly to take out patents. Do the Government have some suggestions about that?
	I know on excellent authority that my noble friend Lord Sainsbury likes to read management books. I am sure that he is familiar with Drucker's advice that you must always have agreement on a problem before trying to find a solution. The "over the top" approach of the earlier military is not a good approach for management nor for managing science. It would be helpful for the scientific community in the UK and elsewhere if the chief scientists of government departments and agencies were much more open in reviewing the critical research problems that need study. They are very good at telling you their successes, but they are not so good at telling you their problems.
	When I was head of the Meteorological Office, I was greeted on King's Parade when I arrived there by someone saying, "Julian, there are some really serious problems with statistics in the Met Office". So we looked into that. I do not know with what they greeted my noble friend Lord Sainsbury when he entered his office on Victoria Street, but I am sure that there are problems. However, a previous eccentric Minister of OST, Keith Joseph, stopped the National Physical Laboratory from producing its annual report. We need more such open reports focusing on the problems.
	Last month, I visited the United States where I heard from the Environmental Protection Agency that air pollution is leading to the deaths of 60,000 people each year in the United States. It commented on how science and technology may help to mitigate that effect. Another example is the serious problem of dealing with nuclear waste. As was said during last week's debate in the House, that is a critical issue for our nuclear energy policy. The Government should do more to focus on what are the critical problems, which is not happening at present.
	My final point, before the clock ticks, is that one of the greatest ways in which government research and technology can be applied is through data exchange and availability. As is known, the UK produces excellent research but it is nothing like as widely disseminated as data from United States laboratories. They have a much more open approach to data exchange. I frequently receive communications from people about the inadequacy of the dissemination of UK data. As I understand it, there is now not even a clear statement about the exchange of data between government agencies and laboratories. I worked on that 10 years ago; it seems now to be gathering dust. I hope that the Minister will look into that.

Lord Turnberg: My Lords, I should like to focus on the contribution that medical research makes to the UK economy. The contribution of biomedical and clinical research going on in our universities and hospitals across the country is remarkable, but largely unquantified, quite apart from its contribution to the nation's health. That is in addition to the large input made by the UK pharmaceutical industry. I intend to show that, if we extrapolate from the USA, where they have done the calculations, the UK probably gains £5 for every pound invested in medical research.
	Let me start with a few examples of the fruits that UK basic and clinical research have provided, from the invention and development of CT and MRI scanners through to the first development of hip replacement operations, monoclonal antibodies, H receptor antagonists, beta-blockers and new treatments for cancer and leukaemia. In each of those few examples, researchers in the UK have played the prime role in discovery and development from the laboratory to the bedside.
	All those medical and technological developments have contributed to longevity and good health. It is now clear that we are living longer. Anyone born today will live two years longer than someone born 10 years ago. We seem to gain two years of extra life for every 10 years that go by. That is, we gain 12 minutes in every hour, so for the two hours of this debate, someone born at the end of it will live 24 minutes longer than someone born at the beginning of it. It may seem even longer.
	It is not simply that we are living longer; we are living longer in a healthy state, that is, we are delaying the onset of disability and dependency. The improvements in health mean less time off work, less absenteeism, lower sickness benefit payments, lower burdens on carers, fewer and shorter hospital stays per person, longer employment and increased labour productivity. The increased productivity out of all of that is what we must weigh against the money that goes into research. A great deal of money goes in both directly from the Government through its research councils and from industry and the medical research charities—here I must express an interest as scientific adviser to the Association of Medical Research Charities.
	If you total all that up, it comes to a massive £5.5 billion per annum, of which I can say that the charities put in £634 million a year, the Government, through the MRC, £435 million, the Department of Health through its R&D programme, £650 million and the drug industry a huge £3.5 billion per annum, which makes up about one quarter of all UK industry R&D. But when we come to try to measure the economic returns from that investment, there is such a variety of ways to look at outcomes that it is not straightforward. In the UK, we have lagged behind in trying to calculate those returns, but efforts have been made in the United States and in Australia. Their figures suggest that the value to their economies is enormous. Conservative estimates suggest that in the USA, its large investment—much larger than ours, of course—is repaid at least fivefold.
	Let me reiterate some US statistics. For a cost to the US of about $1 trillion per year, research in both basic biological sciences and the development of new drugs and technology, the returns were calculated at eight times that figure—$8 trillion to $10 trillion per annum. In a study of morbidity and mortality from cardiovascular disease and cancer, the major causes of death and disability, it was calculated that only a 10 per cent reduction in mortality from those diseases would give a return of about $10 trillion per annum.
	All those calculations are provided in a very important book by two highly respected economists from Chicago, Kevin Murphy and Robert Topel. I commend the book to noble Lords. Their calculations provide very large figures that are difficult to grasp, but for every $1 trillion dollars invested, the return is around five to 10 times greater. Similar figures have been obtained in Australia.
	Of course all those figures are based on a number of assumptions and may not be entirely applicable here, but, whichever way you do the calculations, you still find extremely valuable economic returns. Even on the most pessimistic calculation, it is hard not to conclude that investment in medical research makes sense not only for social and well-being reasons but for economic ones, too. We have to make those calculations in the UK, and we have not yet done so. Help is at hand because the Academy of Medical Sciences, of which I am a fellow and an ex-vice-president, has initiated a study that I hope will provide some of the data fairly soon.
	I am aware that this Government do a great deal to stimulate investment in medical research. The current Chancellor of the Exchequer is well disposed towards it and has made medical research a high priority. The Department of Health has joined in; it is extremely supportive of the need for medical research and is also investing in that field. The Minister is making sterling efforts to encourage investment here by the bioscience and pharmaceutical industry and doing his very best to combat animal terrorist groups, for example. The industry is very concerned about a number of factors that inhibit its natural desire to invest here. It works in a global way and has direct access to many countries where it can do research with less stress and sometimes more economically. So it is vital that we lean over backwards to encourage the industry to invest here and not elsewhere, but not only in its own R&D because we also want it to strengthening its links with the clinical and academic community in the NHS and UK universities.
	I finish with the message that investment in basic biomedical and clinical research and pharmaceutical industry R&D yields very impressive dividends, not only in health and longevity, but in economic terms it gives returns that would be the envy of any top FT100 company.

Lord Sainsbury of Turville: My Lords, I am grateful to my noble friend Lord Bhattacharyya for raising the important issue of science and technology and its contribution to economic growth. I am also enormously thankful to the noble Baroness, Lady Miller, for her superb short speech, which added an enormous amount to the debate. We have had an excellent debate. I should like to close by reiterating the Government's strong belief in the contribution that science, technology and innovation can make to our economy and quality of life, by describing briefly what we have done to create the best possible conditions for science, technology and innovation to flourish and, briefly, also look at the results that we have achieved.
	Today, science and innovation are central to our economic success. The reasons for that are very simple. Barriers to world trade are coming down. The Chinese economy, with wages at 5 per cent of ours, is growing rapidly. The world's division of labour is being redrawn. In 1980, less than one-tenth of manufacturing exports came from the developing world. Today, that figure is almost 30 per cent. In 20 years' time, it will probably be 50 per cent. So we clearly face a very tough challenge.
	At the same time, technology and scientific understanding are changing our world faster than ever before and creating new opportunities. Development in ICT, new materials, biotechnology, new fuels and nanotechnology are creating a new wave of innovation and new opportunities for entrepreneurial businesses, large and small, to create competitive advantage.
	As recent events have shown, there are still countries in Europe that think protectionism in one form or another is the way to tackle global competition. Realistically, the only way in which developed countries will be able to survive and prosper in this new global economy and compete against countries like China is by moving into new, high value-added areas. At the same time, in spite of what was said by my noble friend Lord Bhattacharyya and the noble Lord, Lord Soulsby, we should be careful not to overestimate the current strength of Chinese science and technology. Today, their growth is largely driven by low wages, foreign direct investment and imported technology. But we can be certain that that will change. As China and India start moving up the value-added chain, as they certainly will, we can stay ahead, but we should not fool ourselves that it will be easy, and we will have to move fast.
	Science, technology and innovation can also make a major contribution to some of the global grand challenges which the world faces—for example, climate change, the identification and spread of infectious diseases or finding solutions to the most urgent needs of the world's poorest people, such as vaccines for malaria, HIV and TB. There is of course also the major contribution that medical sciences can make to our health, to which attention was drawn by my noble friend Lord Turnberg. It is for those reasons that the Government are determined to make the UK, in the words of the Prime Minister, one of the best places in the world for science and innovation and why we have made major policy changes in the past eight years to support new high-tech businesses.
	When this Government came to power in 1997, it was after a period when science and innovation had received very little political attention and had been badly underfunded. That is why our first priority as a government was to fund properly the science and technology base. In 1997–98, the science budget was £1.3 billion. As a result of substantial increases in a number of spending reviews, the science budget will have more than doubled in real terms to £3.4 billion by 2007–08. This currently includes £500 million a year for the renewal of scientific facilities in universities, and we now produce a 15-year road map for large facilities so that we can provide our world-class scientists with a world-class scientific infrastructure.
	The Government have also set themselves ambitious goals for the future in a 10-year science and innovation framework. The Government's long-term objective for the UK economy is to increase the level of knowledge intensity in the UK as measured by the ratio of R&D across the economy to national gross domestic product from its current level of around 1.9 per cent to 2.5 per cent by around 2014. If achieved, this would put in the UK in a position to secure a leading place among the major European countries and would substantially close the gap between the UK and the USA, the best performing innovation-driven major economy.
	In response to my noble friend Lord Hunt and the noble Lords, Lord Soulsby and Lord May, all of whom raised the question of the amount of industrial research and development, it is important to recognise the make-up of that R&D. It is slightly lower than one would like in this country because of two major factors. The first is that we have seen great successes in a number of industries such as financial services, the creative industries, and oil and gas. Those industries have a low percentage of R&D to turnover, which affects our position when looked at across the economy. Secondly, we still have strengths in a number of industries such as the automobile industry, but they are now foreign owned and the research is carried out abroad. If we are to change and increase the amount of R&D, it will be by encouraging its growth particularly in small and medium-sized businesses, as that restructures the economy. Indeed, one of the most encouraging signs is the very substantial surge in the amount of R&D being undertaken by SMEs and medium-sized business.
	A second major objective of the Government has been to increase the amount of knowledge transfer from our science and engineering base. A number of schemes have been introduced to achieve this, including University Challenge, which has provided universities with seedcorn funds; Science Enterprise Centres, which have provided access to entrepreneurial skills to science and engineering undergraduates and graduates; and the Higher Education Innovation Fund, which provides incentives for universities to transfer knowledge to the economy. These programmes have been successful in stimulating more knowledge transfer from universities in terms of licensing, patents, spin-off companies and contract work for industry. To take just two figures, the stock market value of university spinouts floated on the stock market in 2004 was £604 million, £100 million more than the Government's total investment in knowledge transfer to date. Today, 24,000 science and engineering students are receiving enterprise training in our universities, whereas the figure in 1998–99 was 3,000. If one figure gives one confidence in the future of British industry, it is in the number of young people taking enterprise courses who are also scientists and engineers.
	A third major objective for the Government has been to encourage more applied or user-driven research as an increase in it is essential if we are to reach our goal of ensuring that total public and private research reaches our ambitious target of 2.5 per cent of GDP by 2014. That is why we have allocated £320 million over three years to the Technology Programme, which is managed by an industry-led technology strategy board. We have also introduced R&D tax credits for small and large companies to incentivise them to carry out more research. These are now worth £600 million a year to businesses. We have also introduced our version of the highly successful SBIR scheme in the USA, which requires government departments to allocate 2.5 per cent of their research budgets to small businesses.
	A fourth and very important area on which I have had to spend a great deal of time as Minister for science and innovation is that of public engagement with science. Here we have radically changed our approach from one of increasing "the public understanding of science" to one which seeks to address the public's concerns about the ethical, safety, health and environmental issues raised by major new advances in science and technology. This is the approach we used in 2003 when we asked the Royal Society and the Royal Academy of Engineering to look at the regulatory issues raised by nanotechnology, and to do so in full consultation with the public. This they did very successfully and we are now rolling out this approach in the Sciencewise programme of public engagement. This, I believe, is the way forward. We need to deal with people's concerns about major advances being made in the new technologies rather than to brush them aside by saying that they must accept changes in science and technology without querying the many important ethical, safety, health and environmental aspects.
	My respect for the noble Lord, Lord Taverne, is probably even greater than his respect for me, but I think that he has misinterpreted the British public's view of science. In fact it is very clear from our research that, on the whole, the public has a great deal of respect and enthusiasm for science. People think that it is a good career to pursue and that it brings great benefits to society. However, they are concerned that the Government do not have control over new developments in science and technology. They worry that those may take place too quickly without government control. For that reason, the right approach is to ensure that early on in the development of new technologies, we look at the ethical, safety, health and environmental issues and deal with them.
	Finally, I would like to mention the emphasis we place on science, technology and innovation in our regional policies, with the regional development agencies strengthening research activities essential to regional growth, supporting knowledge transfer from universities, encouraging high-tech clusters and providing financial support for new high-tech firms. All RDAs now have a science and industry council, and it is encouraging to note that RDAs are planning to spend £360 million a year on supporting science and innovation.
	The international dimension of science, technology and innovation is of great importance. As the noble Baroness, Lady Sharp, pointed out, if we carry out 5 per cent of the world's science, some 95 per cent takes place elsewhere, and linking in with that scientific work is of key importance. I am pleased to announce today that we are providing £6 million to four collaborative projects which will link world-class British universities with world-class American ones to increase scientific excellence and innovation. These will include the University of Manchester working with the University of Washington and a wide range of businesses on the development of composite materials for use in aircraft design; Imperial College in London working with the University of Texas, Oak Ridge National Laboratory and the Georgia Institute of Technology on the treatment of cancer and on energy research; Cambridge University continuing its productive partnership with MIT; and a consortium of the universities of Bath, Bristol, Southampton and Surrey working with the University of California in the areas of wireless technology, the life sciences, the environment and advanced materials.
	I turn now to a number of the specific points raised by noble Lords. I agree with my noble friend Lord Battacharyya, the noble Lord, Lord May, and the noble Baroness, Lady Sharp, that our scientific research is outstanding and we need to regard it as a major national asset to the country. The way I think it can best be expressed is to say that we have 1 per cent of the world's population, but we undertake 5 per cent of the world's science. We produce 9 per cent of all scientific papers and receive 12 per cent of all citations. That indicates clearly the quality of the science being carried out. Indeed, we are responsible for 13 per cent of the most highly cited papers produced in the world.
	As I have said, the record on industrial research is slightly better than perhaps was implied during the debate. It is also encouraging to note that after years of falling rates of research, after it bottomed out in 1998 it has since stabilised and is now rising slightly. It is not increasing quickly enough, but it is going in the right direction. In response to the points made by my noble friend Lord Soley, I cannot comment on any particular planning application on a certain piece of land, but I shall be delighted if he comes to see me. That is the least I can do given the short length of his remarks, which was very helpful.
	My noble friend Lord Haskel was absolutely right to stress the difficulties and importance of innovation. It is the process of taking science from the university and turning it into products which is so important. It is not easy to do, although we are getting better at it in this country. The figures I have already given make that clear. However, I acknowledge that this is the central issue.
	In answer to my noble friend Lady Morgan, in 2004 we set up the UK Resource Centre for Women, based in Bradford, which has funding of £2.69 million. It is making already a considerable impact on women in all areas—not only on women in university science but also on those at technician level. I direct my noble friend's attention to the Science and Engineering Ambassadors scheme, which has been very successful. It has moved up from a small number to a very large number of members, a large proportion of whom are women. This is exactly the way we should proceed in order to provide role models for children in schools, where they can see young people to whom they can relate taking on careers and being enthusiastic about them.
	As to the question posed by my noble friend Lord Hunt about problems and exposing those problems to scientists, the noble Lord, Lord May, started a process of ensuring that when we did have problems the Government called in the best expertise, rather than simply rely on the expertise that existed in government. That has continued. We have also produced recently our global challenges programme, which highlights some of the major problems in areas such as the science of aging where we want help.
	The noble Baroness, Lady Sharp, asked about the position of young scientists. Many of our young scientists, of course, do go abroad, but there are now figures which show that they come back. That is totally to be welcomed. They see it as a part of building up their careers for the future, which is to be encouraged. In the same way, we should encourage young scientists from abroad to come here. This is a part of the international position on science. We have gone away from the period when we had a brain drain. If anything, we now have a brain gain.
	So, as we enter the knowledge economy, we in the UK have the advantages of one of the best science and technology bases in the world. In future, we should take greater advantage of it for wealth creation and improving the quality of our lives. The Government's vision for the UK is that we should be a key hub in the global knowledge economy. This means that the UK should be a country famed not only for its outstanding record of discovery, but also for innovation; a country that invests heavily in business, R&D, education and skills and exports high tech goods and services to the world. We also want to be a country with strong science and technology links to the best research around the world so that we can always stay at the leading edge.
	Finally, we should be a country to which talented entrepreneurs and world-class companies come from around the world to carry out research and to set up high tech companies, attracted by the quality of our research, by the strong links between universities, research institutes and industry, by geographic clusters of high-tech companies, by their ability to raise finance—particularly venture capital—and by the quality of life.
	I hope the debate has shown that the Government believe strongly that science and innovation is of crucial importance to the UK's future success; that we have made good progress in putting in place the best conditions for science and innovation to flourish; that universities and industry are rising to the challenge of the new knowledge economy; and that we are beginning to see the first benefits of our policies.

Lord Bhattacharyya: My Lords, I thank all noble Lords who have taken part in the debate and I am glad to see my noble friend Lord Sainsbury back at the Dispatch Box.
	My noble friend is more sceptical than I about our situation. When people talk about the need for more "Britishness" in our laboratories and so on, they should go to the majority of the laboratories and universities in America, where it is like the United Nations. That is what we want here. We need to ease the way in which we recruit people and ease the regulatory framework under which we give them passports so that we can attract them to this country to fill up our laboratories. It is the only way in which we can get vibrancy into our research system.
	I agree with what my noble friend said about animal right activists.
	The noble Lord, Lord Taverne, spoke of his concern about the Government's regulation of science. I agree with my noble friend Lord Sainsbury that if we enter into it at a fairly early stage our regulations are more likely to be right than wrong. But, of course, we have had some bad ones.
	The noble Lord, Lord May, is always brilliant when he speaks. He is a mathematician and, therefore, he is always precise. I was a member of the Council for Science and Technology when he was the Chief Scientific Adviser and every meeting we had was brilliant. He sometimes lost his temper, but he was always right. In this debate he has articulated that a direct link between basic research and productivity is always very difficult to achieve; that to correlate indirectly is the right thing to do. In Britain, the standard of living and the quality of life that we have can be directly and indirectly attributed to our basic science. I could give many examples of where basic science could be directly correlated but, by and large, most of it is indirect. This is for the public good, and the noble Lord, more than anyone else, articulates it very well.
	The noble Baroness, Lady Morgan, referred to the results of cancer research and the need for speeding up the entry of women into SET. I agree. But I am sure that everyone knows—there are articles in the newspapers about it every day—that our cancer research is second to none. I should say to my noble friend Lord Soley that if he could develop a world-class science hospital in the Imperial College it would be brilliant. I am sure our noble friend Lord Sainsbury will help him.
	My noble friend Lord Haskel said something about a subject that is very close to my heart because, more often than not, it is not only the technology developed in this country that is important. For our businesses to be competitive and productive, we should harness and exploit technology wherever it is developed. Although people always criticise that the transfer of pure science into the market place in this country has been poor, by and large, as the noble Baroness, Lady Sharp, mentioned, 92 per cent of all development and research takes place in the outside world. The reason for the Asians doing well is that they have a skilled, literate workforce which articulates and implements its knowledge base because it is hungry for it. We can also do that. This is the issue to which my noble friend Lord Haskel referred. The situation is improving enormously. Many, many companies which never used to have graduates now have graduates and science graduates.
	My noble friend Lord Hunt referred to the problems of demonstrator projects—effectively that is what he was talking about—in America. Although we realise that Americans do not subsidise their companies, their demonstrator projects—especially funded by DAPRA and various other organisations—are huge. Let me give an example. They gave $2 million towards developing robots that could travel for 212 kilometres in the desert. Two years ago, they could do only 12 kilometres; this year five reached the target. The compact engine produced by the American automotive industry was developed through demonstrator projects. We in this country should look seriously at developing demonstrator projects jointly with industry and the universities.
	My noble friend Lord Turnberg spoke about medical research. We know that this country's contribution to medical research is second to none, and everyone acknowledges that. Any youngster who wishes to study science today—including the biological sciences and other exciting sciences—can do so in our universities. Hence intakes in those subjects—at least at my university—have increased enormously.
	Finally, I must thank my noble friend Lord Sainsbury, who is passionate about R&D. Where else would you find a grocer being passionate about an area of science and technology, and being passionate about delivering it to ensure that this country remains on top? I thank all noble Lords and I beg leave to withdraw the Motion for Papers.

Lord Puttnam: rose to call attention to the Hansard Society report, Members Only? Parliament in the Public Eye, on participation in the political process; and to move for Papers.
	My Lords, first, may I express my thanks to all those who have made this afternoon's debate possible, especially my noble friend the Leader of the House, who has given up a very great deal to be able to respond on behalf of the Government? I also thank the many noble Lords who have elected to speak this afternoon. It is a particular pleasure to me that my noble friend Lady Morris of Yardley has chosen this as the occasion on which to make her maiden speech. The whole House will wish to join me in welcoming her; I know we are all eager to hear what she has to say.
	When our report Members Only? Parliament in the Public Eye was initially published, it received what can only be described as mixed notices. However, within a week things began to look up, largely, I suspect, as a result of people actually reading it. I can honestly say that the ability of knowledge to break down prejudice never ceases to amaze me. But of course that is part of the subtext of this afternoon's debate.
	On the subject of knowledge, I here acknowledge my personal debt—in fact, the debt that all of us owe—to the noble Lord, Lord Norton of Louth, whose most recent book Parliament in British Politics has become little short of a bible in allowing me to better understand Parliament past and present more confidently to anticipate the future. His presence among us offers the same reassurance as checking that one's seatbelt is secure on the motorway.
	Having survived what I have come to recognise as the macho reflex of some government departments towards reports that they have neither instigated nor controlled, this particular report has gone on to enjoy six months of remarkably fair weather. Not only has my right honourable friend the Leader of the House in another place demonstrated serious interest in many of its recommendations, but the Prime Minister himself has encouraged a number of other Ministers actively to look at ways in which these recommendations can advance the cause of public engagement, something that he takes very seriously. As, indeed, should all parliamentarians.
	I would argue that by ignoring the present scale of disengagement—or, rather more accurately, the hostility that exists towards politics in general—we are actively laying the foundation upon which political extremism can only flourish, to the point of possibly becoming unstoppable.
	To sit in an exalted place, unaware and unresponsive to change and churn in the society that surrounds you has always been a recipe for the downfall of the mighty—which begs the question: could this soon be true of Parliament? It is my contention that we are getting dangerously close to that being the case.
	Do not just take my word for it. Next month, many of us will gather across the road to celebrate the life of one of the outstanding parliamentarians of my generation—Robin Cook. Shortly before he died, here is what he had to say on the subject:
	"It is because I love Parliament that I never want to see it sink into irrelevance, a top draw on the tourist circuit, but no longer the crucible of the nation's politics. Its authority rests on public confidence, and if it is to restore that confidence it must change. It is those of us who most love Parliament who therefore want to see it modernised"
	He went on to say:
	"The problem is not that the British people have no opinion on the issues of the day, but that more and more of them no longer feel ownership of their parliamentary democracy, or believe that its political culture can solve the problems of their lives".
	That is not only Robin Cook talking to us, it is Robin Cook giving voice to just about everyone in this country under the age of 35, who has ever given 15 minutes' thought to their, or the nation's, future.
	Allow me to put my cards on the table. Having enjoyed the privilege of serving in your Lordships' House for just eight years, I find myself somewhat staggered to discover that my ambitions for Parliament are even greater than Parliament's ambitions for itself. As my granddaughters might say, "How strange is that!"
	In fairness, there has been movement. In the past six months we have seen a welcome expansion of the Parliamentary Education Unit. There has been the appointment of Mr Dominic Tinley as managing editor of the parliamentary website, in preparation for the "radical redesign" agreed as being necessary and urgent by both Houses. Most recent of all has been the appointment of Dr Elizabeth Hallam Smith as the new head of the Library and Information Services in this House. These are very much steps in the right direction and greatly to be welcomed.
	But before anyone gets carried away with enthusiasm, it is worth repeating what we said in the report. The pace and, in some cases, the nature of the changes taking place in society are occurring so rapidly that even our best efforts at incremental change leave us, as the noble Lord, Lord Norton, puts it, running in order to stand still. I would go even further: more often than not, we are actually falling behind public expectations.
	The problem lies not in our commitment but in our ambition. What is needed is not another round of incremental change, but a step change—and a large step, at that—in the way that Parliament engages with the electorate, especially the younger element of that electorate. By way of example, we have the opportunity to commission the finest resource for public and parliamentary information ever created—a model that every other country would seek to copy. It can be done.
	Last week, at an Internet conference here in London, I had the privilege of sharing a platform with Mr Bill Gates, and listened to his very compelling vision of the future—not the distant future, but the world of information just five years from now. In following this up, I became aware of the sheer scale and sophistication of web-based companies such as Amazon.com, which began its life just 10 years ago as a book retailing site, working out of a garage in Seattle. I am no great techie or wonk, so please bear with me while I attempt to enthuse your Lordships with what is already happening.
	Amazon.com fulfils the orders of more than 50 million regular customers. A regular customer is judged to be anyone dealing with Amazon more than once a month. As any of your Lordships who have purchased products online will know, you enter the home page to be greeted with something like, "Hello David Puttnam"—I am afraid the online world is no great respecter of titles—"you recently purchased so and so. Did you know that the same author has a new book out?" Or, "We noticed that you're developing a growing interest in jazz. Are you aware that the following CDs have been released in the past couple of weeks?". The point is that my interests have been accurately captured so that I can be constantly updated about what has recently become available within my predetermined areas of interest. What we have here is an enabling mechanism that allows us significantly to increase interest in the work of Parliament.
	By no means am I suggesting that we develop a cheap and cheerful version of what is already available in the US private sector. We in this country are perfectly capable of taking this technology to a new stage in its development. The BBC and Guardian Online are already world-class websites and the BBC's web-based development of "Listen Again" is literally transforming the audience for serious radio.
	I think we would all accept that interest in politics—certainly politics as we know it—has reached such a low ebb that it is difficult to see how it can be revived through what we might term natural means. As Robin Cook suggested, the electorate, most particularly the young electorate—those missing millions—will connect with Parliament only through issues which are of genuine concern to them. So, for jazz from Amazon.com, read climate change from Parliament.com. Why should the people of this country not directly connect and learn about the issues that most affect their lives through access to parallel activity in Parliament? When, as returning visitors, they are greeted by name at the entrance to the parliamentary site, why should they not discover what a great deal is happening on climate change in Parliament? The website could say, "The House of Lords Science and Technology Committee reported on Monday, and the Minister is making a Statement this afternoon. "Would you like to see it—click here—or would you prefer to receive a copy?". And so on and so forth.
	The noble Lord, Lord Currie, will no doubt smile a little at my having conflated the consumer and the citizen, but I have never had a problem with the potential for enhancing the engagement of the citizen through opportunities and lessons learnt from the market place.
	None of this stuff is science fiction. All of it can be achieved here and now. Most importantly, this represents an opportunity for Parliament to prove that it can escape from the dead hand of incrementalism. Once it does so, other equally desirable changes will undoubtedly follow. Many under the age of 35 now regard the Internet as their principal source, not only for communication but for knowledge. We would be wilfully myopic were we to ignore the opportunity that this represents to re-engage a new generation of informed citizens, addressing their individual concerns and then steering them towards whichever aspect of the parliamentary process is most likely to satisfy their interests.
	I am not pretending that it would be easy, but surely it would be a development that we would all celebrate. I am sure that many noble Lords can already imagine well intentioned laughter seeping out of the Bishops' Bar at some of the ideas that I am floating this afternoon. But if we do not grasp the nettle of change, I am afraid that the laughter could well start rising from outside the walls of the Palace of Westminster until eventually the whole country is laughing at its Parliament. That would be a bad idea for any sustainable democracy.
	We actively seek the votes of the electorate on an individual basis. We attempt to persuade citizens to support parliamentary parties on an individual basis. Tomorrow, or over the weekend at surgeries up and down the country, MPs of all parties will be dealing with their constituents' problems on an individual basis, so why not use the technology that is available to ensure that those same individuals are continually informed of the issues and problems that loom largest in their lives? Why not shift from an essentially responsive mechanism, mediated by the press and other media outlets, to a proactive mechanism that seeks to inform and engage interactively and accurately.
	With all that in mind, I have one question for my noble friend of the Leader of the House, which I hope she will try to address in her response. It is already being suggested that parliamentary finances are being stretched to breaking point by the additional security measures that have been and are being put in place. As a result, the type of recommendations set out in this report may, at least for the time being, be placed on the back burner. Should that be the case, I hope that she will argue that the greatest security Parliament can obtain stems from the engagement and trust of the people—a trust that will best be developed through a process of honest, two-way communication between the electors and the elected. The idea that our ability to communicate with the electorate should be in any way compromised as a result of Parliament taking shelter behind ever deeper layers of steel is something that should not be countenanced.
	In closing, I am indebted to the noble Lord, Lord Howe, for introducing me to the belief of the former Prime Minister AJ Balfour that:
	"Democracy is government by explanation".
	Look no further for why the electorate is drifting away in droves. We have been appallingly bad at explaining what we, in this place and in Parliament generally, are really all about. That was the issue that our report set out to address. A number of our recommendations seem to have found favour with those interested in improving the work of both Houses. The purpose of this afternoon's debate is to stimulate that interest and create a sense of urgency for its implementation. As the noble Lord, Lord Norton, puts it in the final paragraph of his recent book:
	"Identifying what needs to be done is only half the battle. The other, more important half, is doing it".
	My Lords, I beg to move for Papers.

Lord Howe of Aberavon: My Lords, the message that should be put across about this House is important in light of the changes that have taken place over the past five years. People should be told, for example, that no longer is there an army of hereditaries waiting in the hills to descend on us. Instead, there is a very narrow, hard pressed and hard working group of parliamentary Stakhanovites who work harder, perhaps, than many of the rest of us. There is no longer a built-in majority for the Government nor even for the Conservative party. Neither major party has more than 30 per cent of the votes in this House and 40 per cent is composed of noble Lords in the Liberal Democrat and Cross-Bench corners of the Chamber. That is an important insight into the increased role that this House plays.
	The elected Chamber, quite rightly, has the last word, but this Chamber makes a distinctive input to the working of Parliament. When I address it, I feel that to some extent I am addressing the national jury— this broad spread of interests and expertise. It is probably more accurate to describe this House as the national judge because we distil the wisdom, as we like to think, but we then present that to the national jury in the democratically-elected Chamber who have the last word. That is perhaps the better parallel.
	I have one footnote on the historical aspect of this House. I can well understand the concern of people—I have felt it myself sometimes—at the over-elaboration of ritual and dress. On the other hand, I confess to having been attracted by it on some occasions. I designed a uniform for the Chancellor of the Exchequer in which to go to the Trial of the Pyx because I did not see why everybody else should be dressed up and not me. However, we ought to remember that, although we are rightly critical of particular aspects of these things, tradition, history and ritual can serve a real purpose. Emma Crewe, who is after all an anthropologist, goes a little far when she says:
	"The rituals are the real stuff that politics are made of".
	That is an overstatement, but surely our language—the noble Lord, the right honourable gentleman in the other place, my noble friend—is a courteous way of reminding us to respect each other, instead of saying, "You've got it wrong mate". It is odd, but important. I do not stand up for every aspect of ritual, but dress is also important. People wear various degrees of strange dress from Annabel's to Butlin's, from the Quai d'Orsay to the Kremlin, for recognition purposes and to tell the staff from the visitors.
	To return to my opening reservations, the terms of reference obliged the noble Lord and his colleagues to concentrate perhaps too much on better presentation of the performance of a Parliament whose role is ever less respected because it is ever more stunted, "cabined, cribbed, confined" by the behaviour, not just of this Government but of successive governments. The noble Lord rightly reminded us of Robin Cook's phrase. That is one reason why people feel that they have lost ownership of Parliament—because it has been hijacked by the Executive.
	A similar question is posed in a book produced recently by Sir Christopher Foster, called Why Are We So Badly Governed?, which contains a lot of perceptive observations on all this. Is it not just because of the declining role of Parliament but because of a decline—a much wider question—in the candour, courage and quality of democratic political leadership, not only in this country but in other countries around the world? Is that being reflected and entrenched in the diminishing role of Parliament? What is it—and this again reflects the question posed by the noble Lord—that makes it so hard for us in today's democracies to carry through those changes that many citizens and many Members of this House know in their hearts to be necessary, on the questions that he identified, such as climate change, nuclear energy and retirement age? We all know that those questions are crying out for earnest, candid address; why does it not happen?
	I was delighted to rediscover a quote that I once used in a party conference speech. It is an observation almost 150 years old by Walter Bagehot, at the time of our first major step towards universal suffrage, the 1867 Reform Bill. He said that he could conceive of nothing more corrupt than that two combinations of well taught and rich men—noble Baronesses must forgive me, as he was talking about the 19th century—should compete for the support of the working man and promise to do as he likes, if only he would tell them what it is. That is an apt definition, from a long time ago, of focus group politics. In effect, he was forewarning us about the kind of thinking that has caused so many things to happen, and not just here. Why has the European Union failed to implement the Lisbon agenda? Similar fears stand in the way of candour in that regard.
	We do not have to go on proving Bagehot right. As the noble Lord said—to requote his quotation—democracy is governed by explanation, and we have to understand that democracy is a two-way process. I hope that I may be forgiven for returning us to the issue, but there is ample room—as I believe the government led by my noble friend Lady Thatcher demonstrated—for courageous political leadership in interpreting the nation's mood. We had one advantage in our favour at the time when we were doing those difficult things, in that almost everyone realised that the nation was in the last chance saloon. But it is possible to identify what is necessary, expound it and go ahead with doing it.
	Political leaders need to identify, with as wide a consensus as possible, the way ahead, which is often in truth the only way however unpopular it might be, and to persuade people why they have to follow that road. That is at the heart of the credibility of Parliament and politics. Public opinion needs to be persuaded and not spun; it needs to be led and not fed. That is the right way, the best way and the only way towards "a more effective Parliament", to quote the first sentence, and towards the subject of today's debate, wider participation in the political process.

Lord Holme of Cheltenham: My Lords, I start by adding my thanks to the noble Baroness for honouring the commitment she made to this House in an earlier debate on this important topic. We are all most grateful.
	As the Hansard Society has the unusual distinction of seeing its name on the Order Paper, as chairman of the society, I shall talk for a moment about what we do and why we commissioned this important report. The Hansard Society is, in a real sense, Parliament's own NGO and Parliament's own charity. Our mission is to bring Parliament closer to people and people closer to Parliament—the very two-way process that the noble and learned Lord, Lord Howe, has just spoken about. We work inside Parliament with those who seek to modernise this venerable institution and make it more relevant and accessible to the citizen. Outside Parliament, we have a wide range of projects, which many noble Lords will have come across, from working with schools—not least in making MPs' visits less of an ego trip and more useful—to conducting mock elections on a massive scale, to working with disadvantaged and excluded young people—the parts of the electorate that the normal system does not seem to reach—to experimenting with e-democracy and new technology.
	Some three years ago we first identified the real gap in understanding of what Parliament does and decided to set up a commission to consider how communication of our role in Parliament could be better achieved. Over the years the Hansard Society has used those special commissions, which in their authoritative membership and way of working are not unlike the old Royal Commissions—which are sadly no more—to deliberate and report on matters of political and parliamentary moment. I think of the commission on electoral reform, chaired by the late Lord Blake 30 years ago. Most of the chairs of these commissions either already are or end up in the House of Lords. There was the Rippon commission, chaired by Lord Rippon, which produced the report Making the Law; there was Women at the Top, the commission chaired by the noble Baroness, Lady Howe, although at that point she was not a noble Baroness; the Newton commission, chaired by the noble Lord, Lord Newton, on parliamentary scrutiny, two or three years ago; and several others.
	At worst, the reports have educated people and changed the terms of debate. At best they have secured reform. I devoutly hope that the Puttnam commission proves to be one of those that secures reform. The report about which we are deliberating today is I believe one of the most powerful and valuable that has ever been produced under the society's aegis. I have to say—and I shall not spare the blushes of the noble Lord, Lord Puttnam—that each commission has depended crucially for its success on its chairman. After I approached the noble Lord with the important issue of the communication of Parliament's work, he not only agreed to chair the commission but also threw himself with his usual astonishing energy, enthusiasm and leadership into developing the project. In terms of the cinema—and I hope that he will forgive my dragging the cinema into this debate—the Hansard Society may have been the producer of the report, but the noble Lord was most emphatically the director whose vision imbued the whole thing. He in turn was very well served by his fellow members of the commission—by his vice-chair, Jackie Ashley of the Guardian, and a fine panel of leading academics, media people and parliamentarians from both Houses. I am glad to see that my noble friend Lord Tyler, who was then an MP and who was a member of the commission, will be speaking this afternoon. We are also very grateful for the support of Ofcom in getting the commission going—and I am glad to see that the noble Lord, Lord Currie, is present—and for the help of the BBC and Channel 4.
	I believe that the noble Lord, Lord Puttnam, would agree that the commission is not and does not purport to be a comprehensive blueprint. It does not have all the answers about a disengaged public and a superficial media, but it does suggest the first vital steps out of this impasse that we are in of disenchantment, falling turnout and a pervasive contempt for political and parliamentary life. We need what the noble Lord, Lord Puttnam, called a step change. There have been repeated polls and surveys, and the evidence from them is clear: as the noble Lord said, people are interested in issues, but ignorant and suspicious of the political process. Although a majority of people respect their individual Member of Parliament—and that is something to build on—they distrust politicians in general. They also believe, for instance, that the media have more power than the Prime Minister or the Civil Service or Parliament; and indeed, judging from research, there is a hopeless muddle in public perceptions between Parliament and government. They are confabulated in the popular mind.
	So wherever separation of powers exists in the British constitution—and sometimes it is quite difficult to find—it is certainly not in the minds of our fellow citizens. You could argue that their instinct, if not their information, is very good, because Parliament in its role of producing good legislation and in holding power accountable is excessively responsive to the Executive and insufficiently responsive to the citizen. I wonder how realistic it is to expect people to respect Parliament if Parliament so often does not seem to respect itself and its own crucial role.
	A report was published earlier this week, which many of your Lordships may have seen or read about, by the House of Lords Select Committee on the BBC Charter Review, of which I and my noble friend Lady Bonham-Carter were members. It noted that there were three challenges for the BBC, another great British institution: the accuracy of its reporting and its journalistic editorial independence; the development of new technologies and the digital revolution; and the increasing emphasis on, and need for, more rigorous systems of corporate governance.
	There are some striking resemblances between the needs of the BBC and those of Parliament: independence from government, so that the public can distinguish between the different arms of our constitution; our ability as a legislature to embrace these new technologies and the digital revolution as a way of getting greater public engagement; and our own systems of governance and regulation in terms of communicating with society.
	In the Communications Act we succeeded in getting an amendment to ensure that public service broadcasters have an obligation to promote civic understanding. That standard ought to be applied to Parliament as well. How good are we at promoting civic understanding? It is not enough for us to inform the public about what we do; we must enhance the understanding of what we do, and of democracy itself.
	Finally, in doing that, we desperately need the constructive help of everyone in the media. The Puttnam commission was perhaps a little gentle with the media, but I do not propose to be quite so gentle. We need the help of Ofcom as regulator, which has clear duties laid upon it on our behalf. We need the help of the BBC and the other public service broadcasters, and greater help and responsibility from the press and the rest of the media. I would say to the media who report our work here, or too often do not do so on a serious basis, that if Parliament can remove the beam from its eye—and, as the Puttnam report indicates, there is indeed a substantial beam to be removed—what about the media removing the mote from its own? They should remember that we in this country are all citizens who live in communities, part of a society in whose future we all have a stake, and not just to be treated as consumers and viewers.
	Here is an example of good coverage. "Today in Parliament" shares a birthday with the Hansard Society. We are both 60 years old. I cannot help thinking that if the BBC in particular and the media in general could recognise, as both these institutions do, that you do not have to be dull to be worth while, and that you can be sprightly even if you are mature in years, we could make the next 60 years a time of democratic renewal and of parliamentary renaissance.

The Earl of Sandwich: My Lords, I congratulate all the authors of the Hansard report. I accept its broad analysis. I think we all accept that voter apathy has set in, and that the public have inclined towards single-issue campaigning at the expense of full-frontal democracy. This process will continue until Parliament is made more accessible and transparent. I fear, however, that much of the change suggested is about representation itself, and therefore goes beyond the strict mandate of this report.
	My own political education was gained almost entirely through non-governmental organisations, which is now a much more popular route into politics. As a young man I only ventured once or twice into the House of Commons to hear my father speak in debates which I found frankly rather obscure. Once elected under our four-year system, MPs are really a law unto themselves, and subject to the Whip. Yesterday's outburst of Back-Bench freedom was an encouraging exception.
	I doubt whether action on any of these recommendations will attract the voters back, but I think that they will make Parliament more accessible to those who already take an interest. I will mention sixth formers in particular. In this sense, the noble Lord, Lord Puttnam, is handing Parliament a lifeline, as he just implied himself.
	More transparency in procedure and a language review would help. At first sight this looks like a back door into reform of working practices, but it is a fair point that parliamentary language and procedure could be made more digestible and intelligible. Here I do not quite agree with the noble and learned Lord, Lord Howe. The endless repetition of titles in both Houses could be simplified without loss of elegance or courtesy, and the labyrinthine procedures surrounding Private Members' Bills and the like could be removed. As suggested, a Joint Committee could at least consider this while reviewing communications strategy. These points have been made before; in fact, the appendices of previous reports are rather daunting. These issues should be dealt with.
	I hesitate when it comes to the recommendation of a single communications department. The Lords could never agree to unite both Houses in one central voice of Parliament which the Commons would always dominate. To maintain the present balance we must surely keep the two voices harmonious but distinct. However, to achieve even harmony will require a joint communications strategy and a Joint Committee, as well as a strengthening of the present loose structure—of which I have some experience—in which rubber stamps seem to be the most practical form of decision-making.
	I have some sympathy with those who would like to improve the media's access to Parliament—though I will not enter the "motes and beams" debate provoked by the noble Lord, Lord Holme—having some personal experience of the frustrations of camera crews sent upstairs to film interviews that they really wanted outside the Members' rooms. We do not have adequate facilities for the media. Yet there is a real risk of the media occasionally interfering with normal business, and, yes, our somewhat traditional way of life.
	I want, though, to concentrate on recommendations for education, and here, like others, I very much look forward to the maiden speech of the noble Baroness, Lady Morris. Almost exactly 10 years ago, my maiden speech dealt with citizenship, awareness of world issues, the Crick report and changes in the key stage 3 curriculum, where there has been a lot of progress under this Government. In this context, the noble Lord, Lord Weatherill, who is otherwise engaged today, has made an enormous contribution.
	I still feel passionately, with the British Youth Council, that young people need more opportunities to experience the real world in relation to their education. The UK Youth Parliament, launched six years ago with the help of LEAs, has made a tremendous start. It has adopted admirable aims, such as raising awareness of the situation of asylum seekers, erasing misconceptions and better integrating them into the community.
	The UNA—the United Nations Association—has also had notable success with its model UNs, which now benefit some 200,000 young people a year. I spent a morning with the one at Leeds University, and was impressed by the commitment of all those involved. There was an idea that each student should be able to advocate a country other than their own. The only country that was an exception was Israel—apparently only an Israeli student was able to fill that role, and he did so very well.
	Many of these groups, even sixth-form groups, have their own websites. Our own website, which is sadly still under construction, could learn a great deal from looking at them and exploring their ideas.
	I support the suggestion that we have a designated debating chamber for young people in the vicinity of Parliament, if not in the Palace itself. I hope the Lord President will encourage this idea. It would give great encouragement to schools and societies promoting citizenship, and to any other young people who take political life seriously—and there are many of them. I realise that Committee rooms are in demand, but perhaps this arrangement could be formalised as part of the work of the Education Unit. The unit itself, although being expanded, consists of only six people who have to manage 10,000 young people every year. It needs strengthening, and I hope the House of Lords, which helps to fund it, will itself become more involved in implementing these ideas.
	I am not one of those who thinks that all young people ought to have this experience because not all of them want it or need it. In most schools it is usually a committed group of sixth formers. I invited one of them to come in and share some ideas only last week. He is 17 and comes from a north London school. He thinks that school politics could be made much more interesting. I shall quote him at some length. He says:
	"The youth of today feel disconnected with politicians, because they have received a completely different education from most MPs and Peers and they have different attitudes towards life in general. Many young people from poor backgrounds feel angry and a little patronised. They therefore divert their anger towards politicians who are seen as the enforcers of the laws and regulations which are keeping them down the social political and economic ladder.
	However there are not enough young people interested in politics. Maybe it would help if there were workshops available to both parents and young people so that they could learn and discuss together.
	Politics needs to become exciting again. Maybe every school should be visited by an MP or politician at some stage. When an MP meets people face to face and answers questions, they feel they can respond to things happening in Parliament. MPs could ask the opinion of students in their constituency on important issues such as the Iraq war".
	Finally, this student says:
	"Activities such as Model UNs . . . are the best way of involving young people in politics. If these could be in the main parliament building it would add to the atmosphere and realism of the activity, and people might take it a lot more seriously than at school".
	What this young man did not say is that politicians could do more themselves to appeal to young people and undergo some form of training, as the report advocates. This is, of course, a matter for the two Houses, but the Government's support would be invaluable.

Baroness Morris of Yardley: My Lords, if it does not sound something of a contradiction in terms it is 13 years since I last made a maiden speech in Parliament. I certainly feel 13 years older; I am yet to feel 13 years wiser, but I hope very much that listening to debates in your Lordships' House, certainly from what I have heard so far, will enable me to feel that extra wisdom in the, I hope, not too distant future.
	It is a privilege to sit in the House of Lords, as it was a privilege to sit in the House of Commons representing my constituency of Yardley in the City of Birmingham, and to have served in two government departments. In the contributions that I shall make in the House of Lords I very much want to reflect the experiences that I had there as a Minister, and the opportunities I had to meet so many people. Parliament is certainly a great place for learning. In view of the subject of today's debate, it should also be a good place in which to teach people about what we do.
	In the context of this debate it is my contact with my constituents—over 100,000 people in the constituency of Yardley—that most informs my views regarding what I want to say today. There are two matching myths around at the moment. They are growing with such strength that they are almost becoming an accepted part of our democracy. The first myth is that Parliament, and what we discuss here, is no longer relevant to people's lives. The second almost matching myth is that people are not interested in politics. Nothing could be further from the truth. Neither of those things reflects the health of our democracy or what people think regarding their everyday lives. That was brought home to me strongly in my experience as a local constituency Member of Parliament.
	The noble Lord, Lord Puttnam, referred to advice bureaux that Members of Parliament will hold this weekend. Time and time again when I held advice bureaux it struck me that the hopes, concerns, aspirations, the matters that people felt pleased about and the matters that people worried about in their lives, their families' lives and their communities' lives, were matters on which we took decisions. They were the bread-and-butter matters that we tackled in Parliament every day. Every time constituents were worried about a school, or wanted a nursery place for their young child, or had a concern that they did not receive hospital treatment as quickly as they should, they were talking about politics. They were engaging with politics as the latter affected their lives and those of their families. Noble Lords have mentioned my next point. Every poll that is conducted does not tell us that people are not interested in politics; they tell us that more people are interested in political activity and in the substance of politics than ever before.
	The one group that is most interested in politics comprises young people. Part of the myth which is going around is that we are bringing up a generation who are not interested in what happens to their country or in the nature of politics. There is no evidence to indicate that that is the case. However, the dilemma is that while it is true that people are interested in politics and in what happens to them, that is matched by an increasing disengagement from the institutions which drive political change; that is, our Houses of Parliament, our House of Commons and our House of Lords, and from the political parties, which are a cornerstone—and have been for a very long time—of our nation's democracy.
	In my view the first step is to accept that the fault is ours and not that of the people. Therefore, it is our responsibility to drive the change to a culture that again reunites the people's interest and their passion for politics, because politics affects their lives, with the institutions that are charged with delivering politics in our democracy. I do not want to suggest that this is a simple problem; it is not, it is very complex. Nor do I want to suggest that I have all the answers, because I do not. However, I shall refer to one or two very important points in the report.
	I welcome the report and congratulate the Hansard Society on producing it and on the work that it has done over the years. I also congratulate and thank my noble friend Lord Puttnam for chairing the commission with the energy, commitment and enthusiasm that he brings to whatever he does. The report's strength is that it has a very clear focus on a particular aspect of our democracy. It concerns how we communicate with the people we serve. Another strength, which I believe has been mentioned, is that it brought together politicians and journalists. This is a three-way relationship. In my view political journalists have just as much responsibility for the health of our democracy as Members of the House of Lords and Members of the House of Commons. But whatever the nature of the relationship between politicians and journalists, neither of us would have any reason for existing if it was not for the people that we both should serve. A huge strength of the commission was that it engaged with both those groups. Its recommendations therefore address broadcasting and journalism and what we do in this House.
	I share with the noble Lord, Lord Puttnam, the sense of urgency with regard to the report. If we were to implement every recommendation and if we were to surprise ourselves and do it within the next year, the sad fact is that we would just about catch up with other institutions which play an important part in the life of society. Parliament, the house of democracy, should lead in that regard.
	I agree with tradition. I am immensely proud of the traditions of the Houses of Parliament. When I have visitors I enjoy behaving rather like a tourist guide. That part of our history explains a lot about how we deal with our present. However, that pride in tradition should never ever prevent us changing to face the future. I suspect that there is still a tendency to consider that tradition holds us back whereas we should respect it but move forward.
	As I made notes for this speech I reflected that if other institutions did as badly as we do as regards communication with the public, they would be berated. If there was something called Offgov or Offparliament—although I do not by any means wish that that were the case—we would be in serious special measures on account of serious weaknesses. Any school that did not communicate with on a regular basis, did not explain to them the nature of the national curriculum or listen to what parents had to say about the quality of education that the school was delivering to their children, would be in special measures and a new head would be parachuted in. Any hospital that did not explain to its patients the nature of their treatment and the options that faced them would barely get a one star in the performance tables. That is how bad we are. That is how much still needs to be done.
	Like other noble Lords who have spoken in the debate, I want to reflect on the importance of the report for young people and the next generation. Almost everyone who will vote for the first time at the next general election has grown up in the Internet age. They take as their right, as the way of the world, personalised forms of communication. That is just part of their everyday lives. The truth is that our young people, even those who are not of the age to vote, find it easier to communicate directly in real time with people they do not know on any continent of the world than they would to communicate with a Member of this House. This generation of young people is not used to having one-way communication; they are used to a form of communication that allows them to reply in a very short time. Referring to Parliament, my noble friend Lord Puttnam talks in his foreword to the report about,
	"the enormous amount that remains to be done in closing the communication gap between itself and the electorate".
	I could not agree more. The report goes on in clear terms to outline the consequences:
	"In the 21st century institutions that do not communicate fail".
	The report asks us to do no more than we ask of other institutions who serve our collective public. They do that, so we should make changes so that we can keep faith with the people who put us in business.
	I particularly welcome some of the recommendations. Recommendations 18, 20 and 21, on education, would mean that we could play our part in citizenship and the work that we need to do in bringing on the next generation of children in a way that other institutions are already doing. Recommendation 30 enhances the media's ability to report Parliament in a relevant way, and Recommendation 1 is the means to make it happen.
	I conclude by again thanking the committee for producing this report, which enables us to move forward. But we have to take the initiative. I hope that in the not-too-distant future the next debate on the topic might reflect on the progress that we have made since the launch of the report.

Baroness Bonham-Carter of Yarnbury: My Lords, I add my congratulations to those given to the noble Baroness on her excellent maiden speech. I have long been an admirer of hers. Her style as an MP and Cabinet Minister was distinguished by her understanding of the need to do exactly what the report says—to connect.
	I too am grateful for the opportunity provided by the noble Lord, Lord Puttnam, to debate this extremely important topic. As has been said by many other noble Lords, people out there feel alienated from the political process, and it is essential that we remedy it. Most worryingly, according to a MORI survey, that alienation particularly affects young people. Only 37 per cent of people aged 18 to 24 voted in 2005. That was the only category by age in which turnout actually fell between the two most recent elections.
	The report of the noble Lord, Lord Puttnam, confirms that people are not just confused but plain ignorant about what happens at Westminster, stating that:
	"Most of the population simply do not have a clue about how Parliament works or what our MPs do".
	The important principle behind the report—made clear in the ironic title, Members Only? Parliament in the Public Eye—is that the public have the right to know what goes on in Parliament and to participate in its proceedings, and that it is Parliament that should actively seek to involve the electorate if we are to succeed in reconnecting with them.
	I want to talk particularly about television coverage of the Palace of Westminster. On that matter, I have the luxury of having been involved on both sides—in fact, probably three sides if that is possible, having been a journalist, a spin doctor, and now a politician. Although I agree with my noble friend Lord Holme that the messenger is not blameless, I know from experience that Parliament does not make it easy for the message to be relayed, and it is on that that I will concentrate.
	As editor of Channel 4's "A Week in Politics" in the mid-1990s, a very important part of my brief was to cover the Houses of Parliament. In those days, broadcasters were still excited by the access that televising of Parliament had brought, and we were expected to translate what was going on in the Committee Rooms and Chambers of both Houses into appealing TV. Largely due to the wit and wisdom of Andrew Rawnsley and the late, much-missed Vincent Hanna, we did. However, we were not helped by the contents of a file that I was given to read on taking the job called The Chamber's Rules of Coverage. It contained a number of very specific restrictions, one of which is the ban on cutaways mentioned in the noble Lord's report. I find it astonishing that it is not thought okay for the public to witness politicians reacting to what their colleagues are saying.
	I happen to have noticed, tucked in front of me here, a sudoko. Every now and then, maybe there will be a cutaway of a politician doing a sudoko—I apologise to my noble friend whom I have outed—but that would not have disastrous consequences. I do not know whether everyone knows it, but we in this House are the subject of a gentle experiment to see whether allowing reaction shots will provoke catastrophe. The rules circumscribe what can be shown. In doing so, they deny Parliament any sense of life. Television coverage is not allowed to reflect the way this place really is. Frankly, the rules make it boring to watch. When people visit the Palace of Westminster, I find that they are excited, exhilarated and surprised, saying, "I didn't expect it to be like this—it doesn't look like this on television". How perverse to pursue a policy of underselling such a great asset.
	The other way in which this place needs to change is over access, about which there is frankly a culture of "no". One of the most exciting and important events to have occurred within these walls recently was the Conservative leadership election, but no television camera was allowed to cover it. Instead, we had the political editors rushing to their fixed spot in Central Lobby to relay information to the public. Why that spoon feeding, with the inevitable spin attached? Why could the public not experience the reality more directly—the drama, the euphoria, the dejection, even the ejection of gatecrasher Edwina Currie once fellow Tories remembered that she was no longer a MP, which I read about in the newspaper. How much more likely we are to draw people into the political story if they can see events unfold, rather than retold.
	And what historic value there could be. How I wished, when I was making a series on Margaret Thatcher, that there had been footage from that same corridor of her astonishing victory over Ted Heath, to bring alive the stories of those who remembered it. One MP told me how he and Airey Neave ran along the corridor to the room where she was to break the news. We had to cover that with our camera running down the corridor, rather like something out of a horror movie, whereas I was making a documentary.
	A more recent historic moment was the all-night sitting on the anti-terror Bill last March. By being denied access to the human story, Andrew Marr stated in this report:
	"Television viewers were cheated of perhaps the best demonstration of parliamentary democracy doing what it should that there has been for decades".
	People love going backstage, but we do not allow them to do so here, and it is a stage that belongs to them as just as much as to the politicians.
	Of course there have to be rules about coverage, as the noble Earl, Lord Sandwich, mentioned, but at the moment they are over-restrictive and sometimes ridiculous. The political editor of the BBC Nick Robinson told me that he was recently reprimanded when reporting from Central Lobby for allowing his toes to cross a line that he did not know existed. And there must be rules on access. Politicians, like everyone in their workplace, need privacy, but the default position should not be "No". I believe that the precedent argument is now being replaced with the security one, but the fact is that it has always been "No". As the distinguished former Liberal Prime Minister, HH Asquith, once observed:
	"There is no more striking illustration of the immobility of British institutions than the House of Commons".
	I think that it is time that we proved him wrong—on that, anyway.
	I wholeheartedly support the report's conclusion that a new communications department is needed, pursuing an enlightened, integrated communications strategy. This is a place that deserves a better press, both from the press and the public, but to get it we have to loosen up.

Lord Howarth of Newport: My Lords, I add my voice to the chorus of thanks to my noble friend Lord Puttnam and his fellow commissioners and to the Hansard Society for their informative, thoughtful and important study. I also, with enthusiasm, congratulate my noble friend Lady Morris of Yardley on her maiden speech. We were both Members of Parliament representing West Midlands constituencies and I vividly remember that, shortly after she entered Parliament, we found ourselves sharing a platform. As I listened to her speak, I thought, "This person is interesting, eloquent, reasonable and decent". That was in 1987. By 1997, through the vicissitudes of politics, we found ourselves as fellow junior Ministers in the Department for Education and Employment, and my appreciation of her political and human qualities could only grow. Today, her speech was interesting, eloquent, reasonable and decent. As we are debating the reputation of Parliament, perhaps I may also say that the manner in which she held, and left, high office did much for the esteem of politicians.
	The analysis in the report of disaffection and disconnection from formal political processes, particularly on the part of young people, can only intensify the concerns that most of us already have. If we see a continuation of the collapse of participation in elections by those who are eligible to vote for the first time—only about a third of them voted on the last occasion—then we might well fear that the writing is on the wall for parliamentary democracy in Britain.
	I shall talk about Parliament rather than the wider issues of participation in politics and, in particular, about the House of Commons because I think that that is the main subject of the document. It would require higher levels of enlightenment than we can foresee for the wise and well tempered debates and the searching scrutiny that occur in your Lordships' House to take the place that they deserve in the productions of the media.
	The report is persuasive in making the case that Parliament needs to be more coherently managed, that it needs to do better in setting out its stall to the public, and that it should have a unified communications department, communications strategy and realistic communications budget. It exposes absurdities and rightly argues for organisational reform and, in particular, for the liberalisation of rules about broadcasting. Of course Parliament should have an exemplary website; of course Parliament should use information technology to promote interactivity between Parliament and people; of course we should strengthen our education unit; and of course the Westminster Parliament should not be too proud to learn from the Scottish Parliament—out of the mouths of very babes and sucklings—about its admirable procedures in relation to petitions, including e-petitions.
	But members of the commission, who are sensible people, will not have been starry-eyed about how much all this can achieve. How far will the public make a distinction between Parliament as an institution, politics, the political parties, political personalities and the Government? I suspect that, in the public understanding, Parliament is a shorthand term for politics in Westminster—for what goes on in the parliamentary bear pit and thereabouts.
	If Parliament as an institution fails to do a good job, no amount of public relations will convince our sceptical citizens that the institution is in good health. The Welsh Assembly has put into practice many of the policies that the commission recommends for us, but I am not yet aware that the communications strategy of the Welsh Assembly has kindled a love affair between the people of Wales and their Assembly. And I would be wary if we were to proliferate communications professionals in this place—a few, yes, but good ones are very hard to find.
	So I enter those reservations, but I favour a serious attempt to make Parliament transparent and accessible. It is at the very least discourteous and unwise that we should be impenetrable to those whom we serve. So I favour more extensive televising and freer broadcasting of Parliament, both in its formal and informal aspects, as the noble Baroness, Lady Bonham-Carter, recommended to us. Perhaps the most important reason why I believe it would be worthwhile is not so much that it will transform public attitudes but because I think that that kind of monitoring will encourage Parliament to sharpen up its act where it is defective.
	Parliament is always in the thick of a variety of power struggles. How those are played out will more powerfully condition perceptions of Parliament than any public relations strategy that Parliament may adopt. Parliament is, after all, the principal arena in which the competing interests and aspirations of our people are expressed and resolved, and the processes whereby that occurs are mainly humdrum, complex and lengthy. It is very hard to see how they can be presented appealingly. If, as the commission proposes, we are to have a review of procedures with a view to improving Parliament's capacity to communicate, then I think we should be very careful that we do not so simplify and truncate procedures that we throw the baby out with the bathwater, that we weaken scrutiny, that we enable the Government too easily to have their way and that we facilitate bad legislation.
	Parliament is often turbulent, and that provides drama and stories which the media relish. The public reaction is mixed: they are both fascinated and appalled by the clash and noise of lively parliamentary proceedings. We had to permit the broadcasting of Parliament; it would have been absurd for Parliament to have hidden from the 20th century's most powerful means of communication. But to what extent has the transmission of our adversarial dynamics—what some people call "yah boo politics"—into every home caused the people of this country to view Parliament more favourably?
	There is always a power struggle in Parliament between Front Bench and Back Bench and between Parliament and government. Because we do not have that separation of powers, that struggle occurs right within Parliament. When Parliament in its historical development challenged the Crown and eventually captured the Executive, it thereby enslaved itself all over again. Too many of today's career politicians are excessively willing slaves. So while I was happy to hear my noble friend say that the commission's report has received a good welcome from the Government, I think that we should watch this space because an independent and spirited Parliament is never convenient to government.
	Another set of struggles arises from the jealousy and competition between Westminster and Whitehall—in this united—and other institutions of our democracy, such as local government, devolved government and the European Union. The commission suggests that there should be a shared effort of communication, and that would indeed be desirable. But I am not sanguine that we shall create an enlightened trans-institutional seminar. I think that the public will continue to scratch their heads, remaining baffled about who is responsible for what between all these different organisations and about what is going on in this complex, charged interplay. So, while it would help if people understood more, the spectacle will never be easy or satisfying.
	The most naked and dangerous power struggle is that between Parliament and the media. Chapter 5 of the report quotes public expressions of anxiety about that. The report offers to encourage us by saying that the problem is primarily one of malfunction. The recommendations look forward to a media that works with Parliament to communicate effectively with the public.
	Will the criteria of news value of the media embrace the routines of Parliament, however worthy? The media will have their own agenda to form the political consciousness of the nation and to be arbiters of our public affairs. They prefer to please the public, to gratify the desire of freeborn Britons to grumble, to "cock a snook" and to give a kicking to authority, which is one of the reasons why there is such a fascination with Prime Minister's Question Time—for all the ambivalence of attitude to that ceremony. They will fabricate celebrities; they will parade scapegoats. We have sadly seen that during the course of this week. When they set out to destroy individual politicians, thereby further discrediting politics and Parliament, no communication strategy of Parliament will stop them.
	While I fully endorse the recommendations of the report, and while I know that good journalists are as worried as we are about the difficult and damaging state of relations between politics and the media, none of us sees our way through. In the long term, perhaps education will be the most important remedy and in the shorter term, better presentation. But the sources of our present discontents are varied and profound and so must be the reformation of our political culture and the rescuing of the centrality of Parliament.

Lord Norton of Louth: My Lords, I too congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Puttnam, on securing this debate and on the report that gives rise to it. I am extremely grateful to him for his opening comments about my own work. It is also a great pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Howarth of Newport, and to agree with the views that he expressed.
	As is clear from what has been said already, this is an extremely important debate. Parliament is the pivotal body in our political system. It is the one authoritative body that stands between government and the people. It is the body that sustains government, but it is also the body that calls government to account for its actions in between general elections. It is the body through which the people speak to government. This valuable report recognises that we have to address not only what Parliament does in relation to government but also how it communicates with the people. It is a two-way relationship. We have to consider how Parliament reaches the people. We also have to consider how the people reach Parliament.
	For people to pay attention to what Parliament is doing, Parliament has to be seen to be fulfilling the functions expected of it. If it is fulfilling important tasks, relevant tasks, then the media will pay more attention to it. I do not necessarily share the view embodied in this report about the terminology employed by the two Houses. I recognise that there is an issue here, but I do not regard it as crucial. What is vital, as my noble and learned friend Lord Howe of Aberavon said, is the substance of what we do. The terminology employed in Select Committees is not particularly obscure or archaic. What is important is ensuring that the work of committees in both Houses is relevant and attracts media attention. One flows from the other.
	The report makes a number of important recommendations on how to communicate with people, but these, as the report stresses, must come as a consequence of a culture change within the Palace of Westminster. We still have a blinkered view of our relationship with those outside the institution. The media are still viewed with suspicion. They have been allowed into parts of the palace previously deemed off limits, but the attitude is still extremely restrictive. The more we allow the media into the palace, the greater will be the coverage of what we are doing.
	Media coverage is vital to ensure that people can see what we are doing. So too, increasingly, is our use of the Internet. The Parliament website is a major repository of data. It is invaluable for people like me. Yet, as the report makes clear, it is not geared to members of the public who want to know what is going on. Contrary to what many people think, people have not lost interest in politics. Rather, as has been said, their interest has been displaced, from mainstream party activity to issue-based activity. As we have heard, the website is not geared to those interested in issues. Although there have been some notable improvements, it remains based on the institutional structure of Parliament. If you are interested in, say, animal welfare, and look to see what Parliament has done in this area, you will likely give up in despair. I know, as I tried it this morning and that is exactly what I did. Not only does there need to be a radical redesign of the website; there also needs to be more central coordination. Perhaps the Leader of the House can confirm that, before the new website is introduced, there will be consultation to ensure that it meets the needs of people outside Westminster? Given that the communication should not simply be one-way, will there be an interactive capacity? I teach, in an MA online, that there is an interactivity which is core to that. It is not rocket science but it is essential.
	In terms of communicating with the public, we need to be more outgoing and entrepreneurial. Take this House. We have an excellent Information Office which produces first-class material. It publishes a booklet on the work of the House. The print-run is 40,000. The number of visitors to the Palace of Westminster each year exceeds 400,000. Most of those visitors will leave with admiration for the building but, as my noble and learned friend Lord Howe of Aberavon said, with no real understanding of what the institution does. The Information Office puts together information packs. These are excellent for students. If students visit the palace, we can give them the packs. If we go to schools and colleges, we can take packs with us to distribute. The material, however, deserves to be disseminated much more widely. The Information Office lacks the resources necessary to distribute it on a more extensive basis. This may seem a small matter, but it is illustrative of the problem we face. As this report states, what we do here is a public good worth investing in. We must change our attitude and ensure that the emphasis is on communicating effectively, not on penny-pinching. We must invest in communicating with the public.
	Similarly, we must ensure that people can communicate with us. I welcome what the report says on that. I agree that committees should go out more and take evidence from people in different parts of the United Kingdom. I have argued the case for petitions to be taken more seriously. Although petitions presented to the other place are now referred to the relevant departmental Select Committee, there is still a case for a dedicated petitions committee. Such a committee exists in the Scottish Parliament and in most parliaments of western Europe. As the Constitution Select Committee noted in its report last year, there is also a cogent case for committees engaging in more online consultation as well as commissioning opinion polls.
	It would be churlish if we did not acknowledge changes that have taken place in recent years—some of them have been extremely valuable. I am very impressed with the work that the Law Commission is doing in investigating the capacity for post-legislative scrutiny. However, we need to go further to reach a new plane. The health of the political system depends on us achieving that.
	The Leader of the House, in replying, can make a signal contribution by committing herself to achieving that necessary culture shift and by agreeing that we need a much more cohesive communications strategy within Parliament. Responsibility, as this reports makes clear, is too diverse. If that means knocking heads together, then so be it. We must put Parliament first.

Lord Tyler: My Lords, I am delighted to follow the noble Lord, Lord Norton, because I have so often been stimulated by his views on these issues in the past. I am also delighted to have witnessed the maiden speech of the noble Baroness, Lady Morris of Yardley. I know that Members of this House will recognise that she was held in huge respect for her integrity and judgment in the other place, and I am sure that that will now transfer here.
	I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Puttnam, on this debate and on the fruitful leadership he gave to the commission on which I was delighted to serve. I want merely to emphasise and underline some of its findings and recommendations. First, as many noble Lords have said, it must be time to have a joint strategy for the whole of Parliament to communicate what we do in this building. That was identified by the Modernisation Committee in the other place as a real weakness. Surely, it must be time that the two Houses together demonstrated to British citizens not only what we are doing but how we intend to ensure that it is more visible and transparent. Surely, it must be a basic essential for a healthy parliamentary democracy in the 21st century that Parliament develops an effective communications strategy and also has an effective mechanism for its delivery. I wonder whether noble Lords have examined the organisation chart on page 33 of the report. The noble Lord, Lord Puttnam, will recall the difficulty with which we extracted that information from the officials in the House.
	The Group on Information for the Public—I wonder how many noble Lords are aware of the GIP—is composed only of officers of the two Houses. There is no Member involvement or Member ownership. I believe that without Member interest and accountability, this vital activity will never receive the resources it requires. Incidentally, I very much endorse the views earlier expressed about the Information Office in this House, which is a great deal more effective than its comparable organisation at the other end of the corridor. And of course this House pioneered the televising of debates. I hope that in this matter, too, we will be leading the other end of this building.
	Secondly, and flowing immediately from that lack of accountability, the commission believes that the priorities for expenditure need to be reassessed urgently. Spending many millions of pounds on a super visitors' centre, which has been mentioned, will be greatly appreciated by visitors from Tokyo and Texas. But, frankly, I do not believe that it will be much help to British students of politics of all ages, from Tintagel in Cornwall to Tayside in Scotland, who find it extremely difficult to come to London at all during their studies or when they are interested in an issue that arises here. Surely, it would be far more cost effective to ensure that we take advantage of a unique opportunity to re-engage the electorate with the new electronic communication tool that is to hand—a really effective website. I entirely endorse what the noble Lord, Lord Norton, said about that.
	Incidentally, such a website also provides an unrepeatable chance of reducing our reliance on the conventional media to communicate what Parliament is doing. The distinguished journalists on our commission, to whom reference has been made, warned us that editors are rather better at dishing out advice than they are at taking it. We were therefore told that perhaps we should concentrate on what we are doing rather than concentrating too much on the media. In any case, there never was a golden age when parliamentary debates were assiduously followed by huge numbers of our fellow citizens. The daily full report in the Times was read by an elite sitting in leather chairs in London clubs. Today, we have a real opportunity, with the electronic communication to hand, to change that and to make it a public interest. Already, the Parliament Channel and the parliamentary website have a far larger audience than ever existed in the written press and they far outnumber those who ever bought Hansard.
	Thirdly, like other noble Lords, I believe that our website is woefully inadequate. It totally fails to keep up with technological change or public expectation. In that context, we must move very fast and very effectively. Let me give one example. In one of my several failed careers, I was an architect—to be strictly accurate, I worked in an architect's office and never achieved qualifications. Therefore, I yield to no one in admiration for this amazing building, which works extraordinarily well 150 years after it was designed. But of far more relevance and value than the conventional "Line of Route" tour of the building must be to demonstrate that it is a working democracy. I believe that all British citizens, not just students, will be far more interested in what happens here rather than simply seeing what it looks like.
	Therefore, as a small initiative in that direction, I have set up on my own website a simple virtual tour to demonstrate how a Bill—naturally, called "Billy"— makes its way through the legislative process in this building. I have already been told by students that that is of far greater value than being shown the way in which Pugin and Barry designed for our predecessors. A useful by-product is that it demonstrates to the electorate how and where there is a point of entry into the legislative process—where the interactive communication referred to may be of value.
	Fourthly, I emphasise what has been said in the commission report and by Members today, that we must make a special effort to communicate with younger age groups. My noble friend Lady Bonham-Carter referred to the depressing drop in turnout of the 18 to 24 age group—from 39 per cent to 37 per cent—in the recent general election. The chairman of the Electoral Commission, who drew this to our attention, warned that some people are now out of the habit of voting, with a generation apparently carrying forward their non-voting as they get older. That is doubly depressing.
	Finally, I have a specific suggestion which I touched on in the commission but which did not appear in the report. The fifth of November marks one day in the year when, at least in theory, the nation celebrates the survival of parliamentary democracy. Why not make that a focal point of a Parliament Week? Scandinavian parliaments which I have visited take their message to the electorate. They involve local parliamentarians in events. Schools and community groups are invited to put forward projects of all kinds to indicate the extent to which parliament is, or should be, acting on an issue of concern and interest to them. Surely, that would be a typically British way—and perhaps delightful in its own way—to demonstrate that Parliament is a critical part of national life and by building on the tradition of Guy Fawkes night we could perhaps enjoy ourselves at the same time.

Lord Phillips of Sudbury: My Lords, I, too, commend the Hansard Society for taking this initiative. I commend the noble Lord, Lord Puttnam, for his chairmanship of the commission. Its 39 recommendations are, by and large, unarguable; they seem self-authenticating, and I shall refer to two of them. I commend the noble Baroness, Lady Morris of Yardley, for a quite outstanding maiden speech, which others have properly praised. I also commend the information and education departments of this House which, as the noble Lord, Lord Norton, and others have said, do amazing work with tiny resources. We have fewer informational resources in this House than the average company has in its PR department. That is bizarre.
	I spent between 1970 and 1983 trying to get elected to the other place and once to the European Parliament. Five times I was roundly rejected by the electorate, and I took the hint in 1983. However, I learnt vividly that the British electorate are, as others have said, not uninterested in politics. Rather, they are potentially passionately interested but, for reasons others have touched on and I do not intend to repeat, they feel apart from the processes here. It was evident even then. In trying to do something at grass roots level, I set up a charity called the Citizenship Foundation. When I came here in 1998 I, like the noble Earl, Lord Sandwich, and the noble Baroness, Lady Morris, made my maiden speech on citizenship and connectedness. That was the occasion on which we first discussed reform of this place. My point then was that unless we drew the public into deliberations on reform of this House, we would fail democracy and ourselves extremely badly, and I think that we did. We set up a committee but it had only eight public meetings; roughly 100 people came to each. The effort to draw in public engagement with reform here was, in my view, tragically inadequate.
	Unless we can do this along the lines set out in the report and along the lines mentioned by noble Lords today, we will continue down this dismal path of citizen disengagement and sourness, leading to what I call a culture of disparagement of politics, which is deeply unhelpful to the process, unfair to the politicians and unsatisfactory to our citizenry.
	To recover the political will and the interest of the electorate, we must do a number of things. First, we must show genuine interest in them. We simply cannot expect the public to be interested in us if, in truth, we are not interested in them. I am afraid that we demonstrate an extremely limited interest in them in all sorts of ways. Why, for example, as we take part in an accessible debate, which has been well trailed and has involved hundreds if not thousands of people, do we have—I added this up before I rose to speak—one person in the Press Gallery, two under the Bar, two in the Circular Gallery and 12 in the Public Gallery—there are a few more now—and 27 in the Chamber, with 21 speakers? That says a lot about the failings of this place and the failings of the process, and we need to go on asking why. I believe that we must reach out in every way possible. The principal mechanism suggested by the report—the new communications council or department—is central to what we do.
	One of the things that we could very easily do tomorrow is for all of us to offer to speak outside this place to organisations who want speakers. It would be very simple to organise. I have no doubt that 600 out of the 690 of us would say yes and probably be willing to go and speak half a dozen times a year. If such a list were publicly available for organisations such as women's institutes, schools, parties and universities, that would be a good thing. We could have 5,000 speaking visits a year out of this place going to where people are rather than expecting them to come to us. That would be a very strong symbol, and we are short of outgoing symbols.
	We must also take over-legislation seriously. It baffles us: it totally baffles the punter. It is not just the volume of legislation—13,408 pages in 2003—but its complexity. I do not know how many noble Lords have looked at the Identity Cards Bill, but it needs a lawyer to find his or her way round it. We have reached a pitch in our principal function of lawmaking that is utterly self-defeating. It is self-defeating in terms of the impact on the country and in terms of citizen adhesion and ownership of our processes. We are too top-down and we must take seriously localism and devolution in all sorts of ways. I am convinced of that, and it seems to me now to be virtually agreed between the main parties that we have to reach out by reaching down and letting people do for themselves what currently we are doing very badly for them.
	Conduct has been referred to. The noble Lord, Lord Howarth, was a little gentle on the other place. I do not think that people understand the ways of the other place as they see it on television. I think that I understand it myself, but yesterday's proceedings—as heard on the wireless and seen on television—were deeply inimical to a sense of public engagement with and understanding of what we are about and what we do.
	Nobody has mentioned electoral reform. It is a highly partisan subject, I appreciate, but I put it to the House that there are far too few voters in this country who are represented in Parliament. I have never in my political life cast a vote for a successful candidate.

Lord Sawyer: My Lords, it is a great pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Phillips of Sudbury, on this issue, and I believe that what I have to say fits nicely with his contribution. He is a bit of a mentor of mine in these matters, and I want him to know that if I had had the opportunity to vote for him in those elections, I would have done so—provided that they were elections in which he was the Labour candidate.
	I congratulate my noble friend Lady Morris on her maiden speech. As we would expect, it was thoughtful, reflective and wise, and those are the qualities among many others that my noble friend will bring to these Benches—which are the ones that I care most about, of course—and to the wider House. I am sorry that I was late for this debate, because I wanted to come to listen, although that may be a new concept, and I particularly wanted to hear the contribution of my noble friend Lord Puttnam. I am pleased that he has been able to pass me a copy of his speech to read before I make my contribution. The work of the noble Lord's commission is excellent and outstanding; it follows on the work of the Newton commission, of which I had the privilege and opportunity to be a member, and goes with the grain of trying to bring Parliament closer to the people, as all noble Lords have said. That is a very important and necessary task for the health of our democracy.
	At some point in our history we shall need a Prime Minister who gets really passionate about these matters. In the copy of the speech that the noble Lord gave me, I was able to read that he was receiving good soundings and a good response from Ministers. But I hope that in future we shall have a Prime Minister who is really passionate about modernising Parliament. Those of us who have worked with Tony Blair know how passionate he was about modernising his own party. It was very important to him; he used to say to the electorate, before he had the chance to show his credentials as Prime Minister, "I have modernised my party, can I modernise the country?" He has attempted to do so, and the success of that or otherwise will be the subject of another debate; but clearly he did not have the same passion for modernising Parliament. I hope in future that one of the parties represented here will produce a leader and a Prime Minister who does, because it will take a big change in culture to make the steps forward that noble Lords have talked about this afternoon.
	My take on this subject is probably quite different from that of other people, because I think of Parliament as a place of work, and as a place where people come to make legislation, make speeches, ask questions, or support or challenge governments. People come for all kinds of different reasons, but this is actually a place of work—and I have been thinking about how that relates to the places of work where I spend most of time. As many noble Lords do, I spend a lot of time in places of work outside Parliament and I spend a lot of time with people who earn less than the national average wage, so perhaps I have some understanding of how it is for people like that.
	I looked for three key words that people in the world of work outside Parliament would expect to see, and I came up with the words "fairness", "equality" and "merit". That is what modern workplaces are like today, both in the public and private sectors, and when people go to work that is what they expect to see. They expect to experience fair employment policies, equality of opportunity and promotions based on merit. I asked myself, what would be the key words I would use to describe this place of work? In order to make the point, perhaps my choice has been a bit extreme, but I hope your Lordships will go with it so I can make us all think, which is the intention of my contribution. The three words I chose for Parliament were élitism, patronage and privilege.
	We all recognise that we are by definition something of an élite. We cannot avoid that. In the other place, the disconnection from any constituency, the long hours, the criticism by the media and the close attention paid to the words of Parliamentarians makes us an élite, but we have to guard against élitism. We must look at ways in which we can practise humility. We have to develop our listening skills as much as we develop our speaking skills, and we have a long way to travel in that respect. Most of all, we must learn from people who are not Parliamentarians about how it is for them and how they perceive us. Many of the speeches made by noble Lords this afternoon have reflected the importance of that learning process and the fact that many noble Lords are involved in it.
	I tried to think of a good example of a non-élite politician, and I came across the example of Ken Livingstone, the Mayor of London, getting on the Tube and going to work with Londoners straight after the bombing. This was not a photo-opportunity, which we see so often in politics when politicians go to places and look normal for five minutes before coming back and being an élite. It was a man practising something that was not élitist; he travels to work every day in the same way as the people he represents. It was so important that he could continue his practice and show solidarity with the people of London. It is not easy to find other examples, but the principle is that those of us involved in politics should explore more ways of showing that we are not élites, and that we can express solidarity and connectedness with the people we claim to speak for.
	There is also the word "patronage". When I was the general secretary of the Labour Party, new MPs—or candidates about to become MPs—would come to me and ask what they should do to get on in Parliament, and I would often say: "Find a patron. Find a senior politician with whom you have an affinity, work with them, look to help and support them, and by that means you will probably find that if you work hard and make sensible speeches supporting the Government, you will probably have advancement". I did not say: "Have a good look at the job description". I did not say: "Reflect on the person specifications", "Take your appraisal very seriously" or: "Have a good discussion with the chief executive about your personal development programme". I said none of those things, because, although they apply in a huge way outside Parliament, they do not apply here.
	I am not saying we can eliminate patronage; it is probably important to how the place works. However, we could at least try, particularly through the noble Lord's suggestion of a chief executive and some kind of council, to consider how some of the practices that work in normal workplaces—and that encourage people to grow, develop, change and train—can be linked to the well tried systems we have here. That might change the opinion, often held outside this place, that Parliament depends on patronage rather than the criteria that work in other people's lives.
	Finally, there is privilege. How do you define privilege? Often, the standing of politics is not enhanced by politicians in the other place—who, in the eyes of the voters, earn reasonably good salaries—taking jobs outside Parliament that also pay good salaries. When I was a young man, people expected MPs to do their work for a salary and not take on other work. I do not want to be "hairshirt" about this. Certainly it is important that noble Lords work outside Parliament, and it is probably important that MPs do so. However, one needs to be sensitive to the effect that has on people, as one needs to be sensitive to feelings of unfairness and resentment that can arise among people outside Parliament regarding the provision of grace and favour homes. A good reforming government that wanted to do something about the way in which Parliament was perceived could consider that matter. Obviously, no one would deny the importance of a Prime Minister having a place to which he could take visitors and guests and where he can spend his leisure time. But in the modern world is it possible to have a parliamentary conference centre where Ministers could book suites to spend a weekend with colleagues from abroad? The same building could be used by non-parliamentarians. Is there a different way of creating a space that it is perceived senior politicians need, but not providing what seem to be grace and favour homes?
	Those are just a few reflections that I wanted to make on the subject. The debate has concentrated very much on communication. The fundamental question concerns what we communicate. These are challenging words. They may not be the best words or widely accepted, but if we communicate patronage, élitism and privilege, we are wasting our time because we are communicating the wrong things. As time moves on, if we can make the changes that have been outlined in the report and try sincerely to get closer to the people and start to communicate fairness, equality and merit, we will have a chance of changing Parliament for the better.

Baroness Wilcox: My Lords, it has been an excellent and valuable debate, and I take the opportunity to thank the noble Lord, Lord Puttnam, for introducing it today. It is also a great pleasure to welcome to this House the noble Baroness, Lady Morris of Yardley, who made her maiden speech today. As we have heard from other noble Lords, her reputation goes before her from the other place. Her integrity and personal honesty will be very welcome in this House, and I look forward to hearing her speak here in the years ahead. I will say, naughtily, that I rather recoiled at the idea of Offgov, yet another regulatory body. This Government is rather keen on them; I was hoping that she meant it as a joke.
	The 120 pages of the report, which is indelibly associated with the noble Lord, Lord Puttnam, reflect the scale and intensity of the work done by him and his colleagues on improving public engagement with Parliament. I congratulate him and his team on their commitment to that. A great deal in the report is good, but I fear that a good deal also somewhat misses the point. The point is that a major part of the business that we are in is line-by-line scrutiny of complex draft legislation. That will never be exhilarating television, however skilful are the panning shots or enthusiastic the reaction shots that we could imagine during a speech by, say, the noble Lord, Lord Gould, who spoke so eloquently today, or my noble friend Lady Shephard, who brought us news of her work with London University and the Sorbonne.
	There is no one for whom I have a greater admiration in this area than the noble Lord, Lord Puttnam. But even he would be hard-pressed to take the second sitting of the Grand Committee on the Commissioner for Older People (Wales) Bill to the top of the ratings. The reality—and I follow and extend the reference by the noble Lord, Lord Currie of Marylebone, to a football match—is that if we were to view each group of amendments as a football match, we would play out three or four goalless draws for every game with a goal. Cup shocks—government defeats—come pretty rarely. In 2004–05, 3,306 amendments were laid; 913 were made, but the Government lost only 36 times. That makes one cup shock every 90 games. That is a bit boring and is scarcely the stuff to get people rushing to their screens or to our Public Gallery.
	We know that in the midst of those obscure proceedings and the dialogue across the Chamber, valuable work is done. Avoidable injustices are avoided. Impending mistakes are corrected. Ministers are careful to consider points that are raised in debate and are ready to alter their view. It is useful work, but it is frequently dull, as the empty seats in the Moses Room or in the Chamber show all too often. If we do not watch every word ourselves, how can we expect the public to do so?
	We cannot alter the nature of our work, and I do not think that we should. Indeed, concern with procedure—where we have made many major changes in recent years as part of the Williams reforms—obscures the real issue, which is whether the two Houses of Parliament are doing their job to the full in sceptically reviewing the work of the Executive. I do not think that they are. Scrapping the fine old term "Strangers" or trying to abolish the office of the Lord Chancellor—part of processional ceremonies that every tourist who visits Parliament has read about in their books—does not bring us closer to the people. It merely drains colour from what we have, as my noble and learned friend Lord Howe of Aberavon described much better than I could.
	All my life in business says to me that we should spend less time worrying about such trivia and more time worrying about whether our basic business of holding the Executive to account is performing. We should do all that we can, and the report has many valuable suggestions to communicate better and to secure more attention for the work of the Select Committees of this House. We should also try to reach out to young people, although I note that the Prime Minister has had the power of patronage for eight years and the average age of Labour Peers appointed by him in the past two years is 60.
	The report is full of ingenious ideas about how we could reach out. I most definitely agree that our parliamentary website should be made more accessible, easily navigable and comprehensible. We should not lose sight of the work that the Clerks of this House are already doing on that, but I have no doubt that the report will encourage them to go further.
	I also pay tribute, as has the noble Lord, Lord Puttnam, and others, to the work of my noble friend Lord Norton of Louth and our party's Commission to Strengthen Parliament. Many recommendations, and indeed many recommendations in the Puttnam report, concerned another place. I am interested in the idea of a petitions committee, on the model of the Scottish Parliament, but would like to know more about how it might work in practice. I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Puttnam, that we must look at easing restrictions on media access to the Palace of Westminster. I am not averse to the idea of committees meeting outside London, but with daily attendances averaging only 388 in the previous Session, we need to be mindful of the pressure on both noble Lords and the staff of the House who would be involved in manning committees of the House, Grand Committees, Select Committees and committees outside London all at the same time. One of the great strengths of this House is the value for money that we represent. Every change we make needs to be measured against that—more politicians and more political staff are not high on the public's wish list.
	I commend, in particular, the suggestion of the noble Lord, Lord Puttnam, for more post-legislative scrutiny. Let us just look at some recent legislation: the Licensing Act, the Gambling Act, the Prevention of Terrorism Act, and the European Parliamentary and Local Elections (Pilots) Act with its removal of the right to the secret ballot, to name but a few. In all those cases, would Ministers not have benefited from the opportunity to consider how their legislation was working out before it was finally visited on the public? Effective post-legislative scrutiny could help Ministers to pull back from, say, 24-hour drinking and might provide the basis for the swift, agreed amending or clarifying of legislation. Working with existing committees, it could also give Parliament a chance to look carefully at, and propose changes to, all those secondary powers spawned by giant Bills, such as the Communications Bill, which we are never able to look at properly during their passage through this House.
	Heaven knows, does not this House's experience with the Home Office's ill-thought out Bill, amended by ill-thought out Bill. Session after Session, make the case for Puttnam post-legislative scrutiny? Surely we should help the Home Office to get its ideas right before releasing another Rolf Harris pushmi-pullyu of a Bill on an unsuspecting world. I like that suggestion: I wonder what practical proposals the noble Baroness the Leader of the House has for bringing it into effect. I back, too, the idea of putting more effort into education and outreach work, although again resource and member issues are involved.
	In many ways, we are the junior partner to another place. We have different perspectives and different roles. It would be all too easy for Members of this House and the interests of this House to be put at the back of the queue in joint structures.
	I end where I began. We must improve communications where we can without losing the essence of what we are here to do. The noble Lord, Lord Puttnam, was a little disparaging about the authors of the Magna Carta in his foreword to the report. But from Magna Carta down we have built precious freedoms: trial by jury; habeas corpus; freedom of movement without a need to identify oneself; and freedom from detention without trial. Too many of those are being eroded, and time and again this House has stood up for them. I have not noticed any lack of interest on those occasions. People are interested in what we are doing when what we are doing is interesting. I doubt whether we need a large communications apparatus to get people to take an interest in our debates about detention without charge.
	Part of the confusion about what goes on in Parliament results from far too much complex and unnecessary legislation put forward by all governments, far too much otiose regulation that Parliament cannot halt or amend, and far too many priorities chosen by governments that are not the priorities of the public. It is as well to call Parliament to account and to ask us all to communicate better. But government, too, have a major responsibility to help Parliament do its job. Too often this House is treated as if it were the enemy of the Executive and not a partner in delivering better government. As many noble Lords have said today, convincing government to engage with Parliament is a communications challenge of a wholly different order. And it is, I submit, probably even more important and far more urgent than many of the themes set out in this worthy report.

Lord Puttnam: My Lords, first I thank my noble friend the Leader of the House for an incredibly constructive and honest summing up. I shall try to use the short time available to me as best I can.
	I want to pick up on something said by the noble Baroness, Lady Wilcox. The noble Baroness knows how fond I am of her, but she made a comment which stunned me momentarily, but now I see that she has done me an enormous favour. She suggested that I was in some way depreciating the framers of the Magna Carta. My instinctive reaction was to say that I was not, but on looking again I can see how that implication might be possible. She is right. I start my introduction to the report with the words, "We the people", and go on to quote:
	"Government of the People by the People for the People".
	It is probably entirely fair to say that the framers of the Magna Carta, Barons as they were, never seriously considered the concepts of "We the people" or "Government by the people for the people". That was just not within their frame of reference. The challenge we face is to make absolutely sure that, almost 1,000 years later, we are not from time to time guilty of making the same mistake.
	The noble Baroness made another legitimate point when she said that the report does not pay enough attention to the extraordinary amount of scrutinising work carried out in this House. The motto on our coat of arms should possibly read, "The devil is in the detail", but it would immediately be suggested that the motto should be in Plantagenet French, and a lot of its meaning would be lost.
	I join all noble Lords in congratulating my noble friend Lady Morris of Yardley on her remarkable maiden speech. For five years my noble friend was my boss, and she was a terrific boss. If she is half as good a parliamentarian in this House as she was a joy to work for, I can promise noble Lords that we are all very lucky.
	I have a couple of quibbles. The noble Lord, Lord Jopling, suggested that membership of Select Committees is less than something sought after in another place. My experience is the exact opposite. I think that the pressure to get on to a Select Committee, certainly that exerted by newer Members of that House, is enormous. Perhaps things have changed over the years.
	My noble friend Lord Howarth of Newport said that satisfaction levels in the National Assembly for Wales were poor. We looked into this quite carefully and I am sure that he will be interested to know that while it is true that they started from a low base, year on year, things have been improving. That is not unconnected to the communications strategy that has been adopted by the Welsh Assembly. While I am sure there is room for improvement, this offers real hope too.
	My strongest criticism is reserved for myself. The noble and learned Lord, Lord Howe of Aberavon, and I have had several conversations about the fact that not enough reference is made to the House of Lords in this report. A good psychologist would be able to explain this to me. I think that the reason is that I am so enormously proud, and sometimes even in awe, of the work done by the House that, surrounded as I was by colleagues with less understanding of it, I became too timorous and therefore did not push anything like hard enough in pressing the case for this House. I deeply regret that and I apologise to the House almost unreservedly.
	Along with other noble Lords, I also thank the Hansard Society. I should say to your Lordships that to go to breakfast with the noble Lord, Lord Holme, then to be asked to chair a committee, to say yes, and then to find that you have taken on a life's work is something all noble Lords should think twice about. I do not regret it for a moment. It has been one of the great pleasures of my life and my colleagues on the staff of the Hansard Society have been absolutely exemplary.
	I am particularly grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Tyler, for referring to the chart on page 33 of the report. If noble Lords sensed a feeling of frustration in my opening remarks, this is where it lies. By any stretch of the imagination, the organisational structure of the two Houses is daft. It would have been nice had someone put up their hand and said, "You are right. It is one of those things which has just developed over the years. It makes no sense whatsoever and of course we are going to redo it". Not so. What actually happens is that the tin hats come on, rather lame justifications are made, and no one has yet said that the structure is a nonsense and will be changed. That may also be why we heard a certain frustration in the remarks of my noble friend Lord Gould of Brookwood, and in those of the noble Lord, Lord Norton of Louth. It is for this reason that we get frustrated. It is not because we want to in any way to disparage the House or the people who work for it but because we constantly sense that really good ideas, thoughtful ideas—debates such as the one we have had today—end up going straight down some unknown drain into the River Thames. It is extremely frustrating.
	Perhaps I may make a couple of other small points. The noble Baroness, Lady Bonham-Carter, referred to television. She and I share a background. Please accept that, from our perspective, what goes on here in the way in which this House is projected to the outside world is utterly inexplicable. We are asking the television audience at home to watch something that they never see at any other time of their lives—no cutaway shots, no reaction shots, no close-ups. It is barmy—there is no possible justification for it—and I genuinely believe that it will change.
	Let me lastly pick up on the interesting point made by the noble Lord, Lord McNally, about the debate on Monday of last week on assisted dying. The noble Lord is absolutely right: it was well trailed over the weekend, it received a great deal of attention and an enormous number of letters were received. At the other end of the Corridor, the Civil Aviation Bill was being debated. I counted six Members present. But the debate that went out live was the one on the Civil Aviation Bill. Our debate was transmitted the following day. Why? It is not the BBC's fault. The BBC does not have the ability flexibly to schedule the output; it is our decision.
	At the nub of this is a real worry. If there is—and this may be what the Leader of the House was suggesting—such rigidity and rivalry between the two Houses that that kind of problem cannot be sorted out, then, my Lords, it is just possible that today's debate has been a fruitless exercise.
	I thank all noble Lords who have taken part in the debate and I beg leave to withdraw the Motion for Papers.

Lord Clement-Jones: rose to ask Her Majesty's Government what action they are taking to ensure that their policies reflect the value of tourism and travel to the British economy.
	My Lords, tourism is one of the UK's largest industries. Measured by conventional accounting as an industry, it is said to represent some 3.9 per cent of the UK economy, and its value is in the region of £75 billion. It accounts for an estimated 1.4 million jobs in the United Kingdom, which is about 5 per cent of all people in employment. Therefore, it employs more people than are employed in construction or transport.
	However, using what is called tourism satellite accounting, which has been developed over recent years by the World Travel and Tourism Council, shows that the tourism economy has an even greater role. This includes all aspects of travel and tourism demand, personal and business consumption, capital investment and government spending and exports. On this basis, it represents some £185 billion in income generated and some 2.8 million jobs, or 10 per cent of the UK economy.
	I know that that percentage will surprise many people who are unaware of the important role that tourism plays in the UK economy. This means that neither the Government nor the industry are fully analysing and communicating the benefits that tourism brings to the United Kingdom. Good information is crucial to making good decisions. Economic tourism information is notoriously hard to come by. Do the Government accept that they now need consistently to adopt tourism satellite accounting in measuring the importance of this sector? Last year a record 27.8 million visitors came to the UK, representing a 12 per cent increase on the previous year. There was also an increase of 1 per cent in visitor numbers to visitor attractions over the previous year. The projects funded by the National Lottery have made a huge difference in the past few years. I want to see this trend in growth continue and for the Government to do all that they can to encourage that growth.
	There are, however, clouds on the horizon. It has been reported that tourism income is down on original forecasts by some £500 million in London, largely from domestic visitors because of the July terrorist attacks. There is also a large and growing deficit estimated at some £17 billion between expenditure by those going overseas on holiday and those coming here. There are changing patterns in consumption. People do not just take one long holiday a year any more. There are increased short breaks, late bookings are increasingly the norm and international and domestic visitors alike are more demanding.
	There are some important issues to address. First, there is the issue of promotional structures in the UK. Since the original Tomorrow's Tourism strategy published in 1999, there have been some welcome developments. Indeed, there are some good elements in the government strategy document for 2004, Tomorrow's Tourism Today. Devolution for Scotland and Wales and greatly increased funding for Visit Scotland and the Wales Tourist Board from the Scottish Parliament and the Welsh Assembly have dramatically increased tourism to those areas, both with an increase in visitor numbers and in spending. Meanwhile, Visit Britain—which was formed in 2003 to promote Britain overseas as a tourism destination and to lead and co-ordinate the domestic marketing of England, and which does some brilliant work, as the interim report of the Tourism Review and Implementation Group demonstrated—has seen its support from the Government remain static for two years and now has the prospect of it being frozen for a further three. If the Government are serious in recognising the importance of tourism to the British economy they should budget for a real increase in marketing and promotional investment.
	The Government also need to learn lessons from Scotland and Wales. Regrettably, there is no Visit England body. There is only a Marketing Advisory Board for England. Regional development agencies and the Mayor of London, through Visit London, are meant to take the strategic lead on tourism policy in England. Some of them have retained for set up regional tourist boards, as the TRIG report makes clear. But without a central body specifically for England, it is crucial that these RDAs improve their co-ordination in relation to tourism policy in order to ensure success, both with other RDAs and with their local partners, and that they treat tourism as a priority. What are the Government doing to assist in that respect?
	A key part of the national tourism strategy must be to attract visitors from new markets. Eighty-four per cent of visitors coming to Britain are from the original EU 15 plus Norway, Switzerland, Iceland, the US, Canada, Japan, Australia and New Zealand. But future growth potential is expected to come from markets such as India, China, south-east Asia, Russia and Eastern Europe. Visitors from China to the UK, for example, doubled between 1999 and 2004 and expenditure more than trebled the 1999 expenditure figure. There are currently some 28 million Chinese who travel internationally and these numbers are expected to grow to over 100 million in the next decade or so now that Britain has approved destination status.
	It must be our priority to develop these emerging markets and I very much welcome the launch of the Britain Welcomes China initiative earlier this year. I also welcome the fact that Visit Britain's focus on international marketing efforts has accordingly been shifted to these emerging and growth markets. However, support from the Government and Parliament is crucial to ensure the success of that strategy. What measures of support are the Government proposing? If they are serious about recognising the importance of tourism to the British economy, they should be budgeting for more pan-Britain funding for overseas tourism promotion, especially in those new and emerging markets.
	Due to the shortness of time I shall, sadly not be able to go into great detail on the issues of quality, value for money, welcome and skills, but visitors to the UK should know what to expect when they book a rated hotel, regardless of what scheme it is in or in what region it is located. I welcome moves towards a single scheme, but participation in a grading scheme still appears inadequate. The Government should clearly lead by example and ensure that official bookings are made only with assessed accommodation. I should like to hear from the Minister what moves are being made in that respect.
	On the issue of regulation, industry and many of the trade bodies are actively engaged, both at EU and UK level, in putting their case for measured deregulation. I welcome the initiative of James Purnell, the Minister, at the fourth annual European tourism forum, in announcing that a DCMS better regulation panel will look at tourism first. We have had conferences during the UK presidency of the EU on this subject, and both Mr Barroso—himself a former tourism Minister—and vice-president Verheugen have made a point of emphasising the need for deregulation. But the proof of the pudding is in the eating. The deregulation task force under the last Conservative government and this Government's Better Regulation Task Force have laboured mightily in the vineyard, but what specifically have they come up with of benefit to the tourism industry? Will we have to wait for a better regulation Bill to become law before any legislation can be changed? If so, what does the Minister anticipate the timetable to be? We particularly need deregulation and a common platform as it affects e-business and the tourism industry.
	The Minister, James Purnell, has placed great emphasis on EnglandNet developed by VisitBritain, which is intending to create a "virtual high street" of Britain's tourism products on line. We very much welcome the emphasis being given to that.
	On the issue of visas, given that tourism is so vital to the British economy, why have the Government allowed the cost of tourist visas to increase dramatically this year, with a typical tourist visa to the UK costing up to £65, compared to about £27 to visit all the 15 European countries operating under the Schengen agreement. I am surprised and greatly concerned that such a disincentive should be allowed to hinder UK tourism. That is a classic example of a lack of joined-up government, with the DCMS not being consulted by the Home Office on that matter.
	Finally, on the Olympics, the tourism potential for the 2012 Olympics is enormous. The games should prove a long-term boost to business tourism in particular, as winning the bid demonstrates that the UK is well placed to host major events, exhibitions and trade fairs as well as conventions and conferences. The London Olympics genuinely represents the opportunity of a generation, but we need to learn from the experiences of Sydney and Athens. The hoped-for benefits for London and the UK are by no means a given. What are the Government doing to ensure that the required leadership resources and preplanning are in place to create the Olympics legacy for tourism? The strategic key to secure that legacy must be full alignment and good channels of communication between the London organising committee and all those bodies involved in tourism delivery and promotion. They must also receive sufficient funding to be up to the task.
	I have not even touched upon the issue of sustainable tourism, the future of aviation, greenhouse gas emissions, the needs of the disabled in tourism and many other matters of great importance to the tourism industry. Until recently, Britain ranked sixth in the international tourism earnings league; now it has slipped to seventh. I want to see the UK move up from that ranking, but to do that we need to tackle some of the issues that I have raised. I look forward to hearing what the Minister has to say.

Lord Addington: My Lords, I am the third Liberal Democrat speaker, and whether I am the third wise monkey or part of a triumvirate remains to be seen. I shall try to confine my remarks to one of the main problems with tourism in this country: getting information out to visitors about what we have to offer. The visitors might come from the locality itself, just up the road, or from abroad. The network of tourist information centres throughout the country should be the first port of call for anyone looking for information about what is on offer in this country. I have been led to believe that they are under threat because local authorities do not have to give them money. They need money to get the information out there. They are not a mandatory service.
	The reason why they are so important was hinted at in the speech made by my noble friend Lord Greaves. Tourism in this country is not passive or contained. If you are going on a beach holiday, you do not go to Britain. You do not get constant sunshine where you can slob out, have a drink, have a meal just down the road and walk back again. You cannot guarantee the weather for that relaxing time of not worrying about doing anything. A degree of activity is required to be a tourist in this country.
	My noble friend at times painted an intimidating picture of going on holiday and marching up and down hills. I was brought up in East Anglia, where walking is a rather more gentle pursuit, because the best we can do there is rolling countryside. Where I currently live, on the Berkshire/Wiltshire border, we have real hills, but I do not know whether they are up to the standard that my noble friend is used to. That is very much a part of British tourism. It is easy enough to find out where the trails are if you are slightly informed. The real thing that backs up the whole process is where you stay, where you eat and where you go for your little trip out halfway through.
	In this country you have to be active, and there is a lot to see. There is historical built environment everywhere. Where I come from in East Anglia we have the great houses of the land magnates of the early 18th century who first decided that industrial agriculture could really pay, and to show off how much it paid they built huge houses. On other occasions, Members of your Lordships' House would say how difficult that was once things like global trade and trade coming from across the Atlantic took away the money bases, but the houses are there. Other types of built environment with a historical basis are in other parts of the country. Indeed, industrial heritage tourism is a growing attraction for many people. All of those are there, but they are complicated; you need to have information to find them. You need to know how you can integrate the activities. You need to know what you can do that brings everything together so you have a series of things to do.
	The big cities have a huge advantage, especially the historic ones. Even in London it is a fairly brisk walk between most of the big attractions in the centre. The simple reason is that when they designed the city they had no choice; you had to be able to walk across large parts of it. It breaks down slightly because the city has become so big, but most other cities, for example my home city of Norwich, the city centre is compact, because it had to be. That is nothing unusual, so those cities will do well for our purposes. When you go out to smaller communities that are either connected by a walk or a short drive, you need information to find the interesting bits and the local attractions. It is all about information. Unless we give more emphasis to finding out what is there we are going to miss a trick.
	There have been several suggestions about how we do that. One is simply to push more money in from the local authorities. If I suggest that, I am sure that there will be an armed posse waiting for me outside from my own party, let alone any others. More money could be called for from the Government; then again, someone can always coffin wave about some of the other things on which I am keen, such as disability rights. Are we going to use the private sector? That sounds attractive, but if you subscribe to a service and it has to tell people where competitors are as well, are you going to buy in? That is an important factor. If only those who buy in are allowed to provide the service, is it worth consulting?
	I put that forward as a situation in which the answer is core funding from some form of government, with some regulation to make sure that advice is to a degree impartial. I do so because I had the experience at a conference recently of phoning somewhere up and, when I asked for some information that was not to do with that booking agency, I was told that it was thought that the place would soon close. More details can be provided outside the Chamber, as I have not warned those people, but saying that is a bad example of, "When you buy in, you own".
	Will we allow such information to be pushed forward better? Do the Government have a vision of a network where we will always be able to find some information about local areas? It would have to reflect the character of a local area and show a degree of local knowledge and training. Somebody from it should always be able to guarantee that I will get the right information for my needs. Simply having a good website will not do. If you do not know what is on offer, you probably do not even know which box to start ticking. If it is something of which you have not heard—if you do not know that there is a local history of museums, or of cloth production in the north of England if you come from the south—you will miss it, so we need people manning the network who can guide you through at least the start of the process.
	If the Government will take the matter on board, they must set standards and provide some form of funding or regulatory framework. If they do not, we will simply underutilise many of our assets and leave many people who would like to pay visits to places in this country booking the next flight abroad, where they know that they can get either a very passive holiday or at least something different—something that their neighbours have not seen.